PART ONE: Media compliance in advance
Let's begin with an essentially random image of headlines from my Google news aggregator regarding the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador's CECOT death camp to the United States:
Here's what you notice immediately: the use of the transitive "to." Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the overwhelming majority of headlines tell us, is being returned TO the United States FOR THE PURPOSE OF facing criminal charges of human trafficking. (Do your own search if you don't believe me that this is the standard formulation.)
Pay attention to what is not said, either in the headlines or the body of an overwhelming majority of the stories, including that ... (1) the Trump administration denied vociferously that it would ever return Abrego Garcia to America; (2) that his return was a way to get around charges that the administration had been refusing to comply with a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling; and (3) that the narrative presented by Attorney General Pam Bondi regarding the investigation and charges does not hold water in even the slightest.
(I want to note at the outset that there is one significant outlier to this media coverage: the Associated Press has been doing much better work than anybody else, as you will discover below.)
More or less what is happening is that our corporate media outlets are "complying in advance" by structuring these stories uncritically around the Trump DOJ narrative rather than do any serious journalistic investigation.
This is significant, because -- again! -- it means that the narrative has been shifted, explicitly for MAGA and low-information voters, to one of, "Yeah, we made some administrative mistakes, but we are now completely vindicated because this guy is a major criminal."
This -- do I need to explain it? -- is exactly the narrative resolution to the case that the administration wants. **We are not bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia back because of due process or a Supreme Court order. We are bringing him back because he is a major criminal that we have heroically tracked down to bring to justice.**
Do not believe this one for a second. I am about to explain why.
PART TWO: The strange "investigation" and indictment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia
The news coverage of what we know about the indictment of Abrego Garcia (and most of that, again, thanks to the AP) is quite confusing because it is generally told out of chronological order, and -- from the government's perspective -- this is the absolute best way to portray it.
I'm going to take it apart for you in a completely different way so that you can see how the logic and timing all falls apart.
We start, not with Abrego Garcia's traffic stop in Tennessee on November 30, 2022, but with a completely different (though quite similar) event: the December 4, 2019 traffic stop in Gulfport Mississippi, ending with the arrest of Jose Ramon Hernandez-Reyes, 33, an illegal alien from Mexico, and Modesto Alvarado, 18, a United States citizen for transporting an illegal alien. According to the Department of Justice:
On December 4, 2019, an agent of the South Mississippi Metro Enforcement Team, who also is a City of Gautier Police Officer, conducted a traffic stop on a white Dodge Caravan on Interstate 10 eastbound in Jackson County. After making the traffic stop, the agent found that the driver, Modesto Alvarado, was a U.S. citizen who spoke fluent English, but did not have a valid driver’s license. Including the driver, nine people were in the minivan, which was more than the vehicle was designed to carry or had seat belts to secure. The agent believed a smuggling event was taking place, and notified the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Blue Lightening Operations Center, in Gulfport, and all occupants were transported to the Gautier Police Department for initial processing.
Homeland Security Investigations special agents and task force agents responded to Gautier to interview the occupants. None of the nine minivan occupants had proper identification documents and eight were found to be illegally present in the United States. After interviewing all occupants, it was determined that seven passengers were being smuggled from Houston, Texas, to different locations throughout the United States. One of the two drivers (who rented the minivan) was Hernandez-Reyes who was determined to be the brother-in-law of Modesto Alvarado. Three of their passengers, Delgado-Ortiz, Aldana-Hernandez, and Gomez-Suarez were determined to have been lawfully deported or removed from the United States, and to have unlawfully returned to the U.S. after their removal.
On August 20, 2020, Hernandez-Reyes was sentenced to 18 months to be followed by deportation proceedings. This imprisoned him until late February or early March 2022, and he was soon afterward deported, but was "was found back in the U.S. in late 2022 when he was charged in Montgomery County, Texas, with illegal discharge of a firearm, according to state court records. After serving time in Texas he was charged federally with illegally reentering the U.S. after previously being convicted of a felony. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 months."
It's very difficult to put together the timing of Hernandez-Reyes (partly from journalistic indifference), but his arrest on the firearms charge occurred on December 30, 2022. The feds followed up on his release by filing charges of illegal return to the US on July 26. 2023. He was sentenced to 30 months.
(Note: you will NOT find this anywhere in the corporate media, which is why I have been so diligent about citing the court documents.)
Let's put together the timeline anew, filling in Hernandez-Reyes known locations and interactions with the law, interspersed with the timeline of Kilmar Abrego Garcia's traffic stop in Tennessee. and the supposed timing of Hernandez-Reyes' claims about Abrego Garcis working for him.
2012: Abrego Garcia comes to US illegally at age 16, according to court records.
2015: Hernandez-Reyes claims (in 2025) that he met Abrego Garcia and began using him as a driver in smuggling undocumented immigrants into the Baltimore area, and that Abrego Garcia drove about 100 trips for him.
October 10, 2019: Abrego Garcia is exempted from removal to El Salvador: "The immigration judge ordered withholding of removal on October 10, 2019. SA014. The judge found Abrego Garcia 'credible,' observing that his 'testimony was internally consistent, externally consistent' with the 'substantial documentation,' and 'appeared free of embellishment.' SA005. The judge further found that there was 'a clear probability of future persecution' if Abrego Garcia returned to El Salvador."
December 4, 2019: Hernandez-Reyes arrested in Gulfport Mississippi.
August 20, 2020: Hernandez-Reyes sentenced to 18 months.
March 2022: Hernandez-Reyes deported.
November 30, 2022: Kilmar Abrego Garcia traffic stop in Tennessee driving a vehicle registered to Hernandez-Reyes. The 2001 Chevrolet Suburban is noted by the Baltimore DSI office: "'Vehicle is used by HSI Baltimore target in human smuggling/trafficking operation. Vehicle makes trips to southern border to pick up non-citizens,' a DHS memo reads. The memo further instructs law enforcement officers to contact the Baltimore HSI office if the vehicle is encountered." What this quotation does not make clear is that the "target' DSI Baltimore is discussing is Hernandez-Reyes, NOT Abrego Garcia.
December 27, 2022: Due to HSI Baltimore connection of Abrego Garcia to Hernando Reyes' vehicle: "Homeland updated its record to urge all personnel who encountered Abrego Garcia in the future to 'escort to secondary,' a term referring to the investigative procedures used when someone suspected of wrongdoing is encountered at a port of entry or by border patrol agents."
December 30, 2022: Hernandez-Reyes arrested in Texas on firearms charges.
July 26, 2023: DOJ files charges of illegal return against Hernandez-Reyes, which results soon thereafter in a sentence of 30 months (meaning his earliest possible release -- for immediate deportation -- would have been sometime in early 2026).
March 12, 2025: Abrego Garcia arrested in Baltimore and quickly deported to CECOT in El Salvador.
April/May, 2025: Under DHS interrogation: "Hernandez-Reyes told federal agents that he met Abrego Garcia around 2015 when he was operating an illegal migrant 'taxi service,' sources familiar with the interrogation told ABC News." Notice here that Hernandez Reyes was offered "partial immunity" for his testimony.
June 2025: DHS indicts Abrego Garcia on "two charges, conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain, and the unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain." Attorney General Pam Bondi also alleged that Abrego Garcia had committed murder and engaged in child pornography, but did not offer evidence or press charges on these counts.
What does this all mean?
Several things.
FIRST: It means that IF Hernando Reyes IS being honest (a doubtful proposition at back), Abrego Garcia's career of driving undocumented workers for him occurred almost entirely during the first Trump administration, because Hernando Reyes was arrested in December 2019 and either custody or deported from then to the present day with only an interlude of time back in the US in 2022 that could not have exceeded eight months (and was probably less). For Abrego Garcia to have racked up 100 trips for Hernando Reyes in the available timeframe meant that he was transporting 8-15 people every two weeks without attracting any suspicion, and that NONE of this was noted by DHS at his 2019 hearings. This also means that he would have, necessarily, transported no fewer than 1,500 people (probably closer to 2,000( in that period. That fact alone raises the question of whether DHS/DOJ has ANY other first-hand accounts to verify this. The available pronouncements from AG Bondi gives no suggestion of this.
SECOND: It means that in 2019, while the Trump DHS may have suspected Abrego Garcia of MS13 gang membership (based heavily on his Chicago Bulls hat), but investigators HAD ZERO IDEA that he was potentially involved in human smuggling, based on the fact that they also accepted his work records in the Baltimore area as genuine. DHS, clearly, did not even begin to investigate him on these charges until May 2025 when the administration needed some way to bring the man back from El Salvador without appearing to cave before the Supreme Court ruling. Which in turn means ...
THIRD: That the ONLY solid lead DOJ had with respect to Abrego Garcia's potential crimes was Hernandez Reyes and the traffic stop in Tennessee. The problem? The Tennessee cops let him go with a warning, and DHS Baltimore took a month to connect the van he was driving to large-scale smuggling. This means that, despite what the Tennessee cops may have THOUGHT, they never got the names or credentials of the people being transported, and there is literally NO evidence admissible in court that this was a case of human smuggling. Of course, it stands to reason that this was going on ... but that's completely different from having evidence. Right now the only actual evidence DOJ has presented is the testimony of a desperate four-times convicted man bargaining for immunity. Did he give them names of any other witnesses who might testify (credibly) against Abrego Garcia? We don't know. I have my doubts.
FOURTH: There is an amazing screw-up somewhere in the Tennessee traffic stop that's going to end up haunting the DOJ case. Abrego Garcia was stopped while driving a vehicle registered to Hernandez Reyes, who should have popped up as having been convicted of a crime and deported if they ran even the most cursory of checks. Moreover, as we know from the case of Heranandez Reyes' case, the police had more than adequate cause to call the nearest DHS outpost, which would have detained everyone until identities could be established. Why didn't this happen?
FIFTH: That the case is .. flimsy at best ... is suggested by this report from ABC NEWS: "The decision to pursue the indictment against Abrego Garcia led to the abrupt departure of Ben Schrader, a high-ranking federal prosecutor in Tennessee, sources briefed on Schrader's decision told ABC News. Schrader's resignation was prompted by concerns that the case was being pursued for political reasons, the sources said."
Like so many others have said, I do not believe that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is the poster child for undocumented immigrant innocence. The point of this case is exposing precisely what kinds of abuses of power are occurring at Pam Bondi's DOJ and Kristi Noem's DHS, honestly aided an abetted by the fact that media -- with access to everything I have just cited AND MORE -- has not put together the timeline to challenge the administration's allegations.
This entire case is a three-day old fish wrapped in yesterday's newspaper, offered for sale as "fresh caught."
Why is nobody except Abrego Garcia's attorneys (and me -- who does not count) talking about it?
No comments:
Post a Comment