Missing the part where 2 federal judges ruled there was

Posted on: April 15, 2025 at 15:18:56 CT

sufficient evidence he was MS-13

In March 2019, Prince George's County, Maryland, police arrested Abrego Garcia with three other men in a Home Depot parking lot where they were seeking work as day laborers. One of the men claimed Abrego Garcia was a "gang member," but The Atlantic reported that according to court filings, the man offered no proof and police said they did not believe him. Abrego Garcia was never charged with a crime in connection to his arrest.

Police handed custody of Abrego Garcia over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation proceedings. In those proceedings, the government claimed that he was a member of the MS-13 criminal gang because "he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie" and a confidential informant claimed that he was active with an MS-13 group based in New York. An immigration judge determined that the informant's claim was sufficient evidence for denying Abrego Garcia’s bond request, and another judge upheld that ruling, saying the claim that Abrego Garcia was in MS-13 for purposes of the bond determination was not clearly wrong.