Lawyer Common Pam Bondi doubled down on the Trump administration’s choice to deport alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to an El Salvadoran megaprison final month — insisting in a “Fox Information Sunday” interview that ICE members have testified that the previous Maryland resident is a member of the felony gang, regardless of arguments on the contrary.
“His attorneys have argued he ought to be right here as a result of he was learning to be an electrician… let me provide you with a comparability,” she stated.
The Trump official steered right into a dialogue about violent gang members apprehended in Florida just lately. One, she stated, was charged with stabbing a person over 100 instances as part of their gang initiation.
One other was arrested in Fort Lauderdale and a 3rd, who fled to Minnesota, was apprehended by regulation enforcement at the side of the FBI and border patrol, she added.
JD VANCE TORCHES MEDIA, DEMS’ ‘DISGRACEFUL SET OF PRIORITIES’ ON DEPORTATION OF ACCUSED MS-13 GANG MEMBER
“Then the opposite… was a drywall hanger in The Villages in Florida. So, the argument that, as a result of these individuals are residing amongst us, these unlawful aliens from El Salvador, means they are not a part of a gang… that is how they’re hiding. That is how they’re succeeding…”
U.S. Lawyer Common Pam Bondi speaks throughout a information convention on the Division of Justice Constructing on February 12, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker)
“Now we have to depend on what ICE says,” she continued. “Now we have to depend on what Homeland Safety says. They’re our shoppers, and I firmly consider within the work they’re doing, and we will make America protected once more. That was President Trump’s directive to all of us.”
Host Shannon Bream adopted up with questioning about Abrego Garcia’s alleged felony exercise, noting that he had by no means been charged or convicted of any violent crimes. She requested, upon his return, if he may face such expenses.
“The perfect factor to do is to get these folks out of our nation, and when that first aircraft left and landed in El Salvador, there have been 261 explanation why Individuals had been safer. Now we have to look out for the protection of our nation, initially, and that’s Donald Trump’s directive, and we’re gonna proceed to try this,” she replied.
JUDGE ORDERS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO RETURN MAN MARYLAND MISTAKENLY DEPORTED TO EL SALVADOR PRISON
This undated photograph supplied by Murray Osorio PLLC exhibits Kilmar Abrego Garcia. (Murray Osorio PLLC by way of AP)
Different members of the Trump administration equally defended the deportation, together with Vice President JD Vance, who instructed “Fox & Buddies” co-host Lawrence Jones final Thursday that Democrats and members of the media had been outraged over Abrego Garcia’s deportation however not equally upset by Americans murdered by unlawful immigrant gang members have a “mistaken placement of priorities.”
The White Home has remained agency in its choice to deport Abrego Garcia following a report from The Atlantic that federal attorneys stated that there was an “administrative error” in bringing him to CECOT males’s jail in El Salvador.
Court docket filings additionally present Abrego Garcia got here to the U.S. in 2011 on the age of 16 after fleeing gang threats in El Salvador, the outlet reported.
Eight years later, a decide granted Abrego Garcia a type of protected standing often known as “withholding of removing” after discovering that he would doubtless be a goal of Salvadoran gangs if deported to his native nation.
In a ruling on Friday, U.S. Federal District Decide Paula Xinis stated that Kilmar Abrego Garcia had been illegally deported to El Salvador and stated he should be returned to america by Monday earlier than midnight.
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The Trump administration has acknowledged Garcia’s removing was an “administrative error,” however has additionally defended it.
“This particular person is an unlawful felony who broke our nation’s immigration legal guidelines. He’s a frontrunner within the brutal MS-13 gang, and he’s concerned in human trafficking,” White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated in a briefing on Tuesday.
Fox Information’ Brie Stimson and Invoice Mears contributed to this report.
