How the Trump Administration Flipped on Kilmar Abrego Garcia

[Eugene]

Source: The Atlantic

How the Trump Administration Flipped on Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Nick Miroff
Fri, April 25, 2025 at 12:04 PM EDT 10 min read

At each stage in the political and legal fight over Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wrongful deportation, the Trump administration has pushed back harder and dug in deeper.

The administration first called Abrego Garcia’s deportation an “administrative error,” then a “clerical error.” The words trivialized the decision to send a man to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador without legal proceedings and in direct violation of a judge’s protective order. Officials insisted that the mistake could not be undone, disregarding a Supreme Court ruling instructing the administration to “facilitate” his return. Now the president and his advisers maintain, almost daily, that Abrego Garcia will never touch American soil again.

“He’s NOT coming back,” the White House has declared on social media, while repeatedly calling Abrego Garcia a dangerous criminal and a terrorist.

But in the days after the administration first discovered its mistake, instead of trying to foreclose Abrego Garcia’s return, officials looked for ways to bring him home. They puzzled over the fragmentary evidence tying him to gang membership. And they worried about his safety in a prison where he could be targeted for attack.

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Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-flipped-kilmar-abrego-160400957.html

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The article goes on to say the the Trump administration saw Kilmar Abrego Garcia's detention as a political opportunity.