The propaganda press is once again distorting the truth — and in some cases, flat out lying — to discredit and undermine President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts. In the latest example, the media are painting an illegal alien — who is allegedly a gang member — as merely a “Maryland father” with “protected legal status” who was “mistakenly” swept up in a mass deportation.
On Monday, The Atlantic’s Nick Miroff wrote that the Trump administration “mistakenly” sent a “Maryland father with protected legal status” to a Salvadoran prison due to an “administrative error.”
“The case appears to be the first time the Trump administration has admitted to errors when it sent three planeloads of Salvadoran and Venezuelan deportees to El Salvador’s grim ‘Terrorism Confinement Center’ on March 15,” Miroff wrote. He later cited Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s attorney who, in Miroff’s words, “said he’s never seen a case in which the government knowingly deported someone who had already received protected legal status from an immigration judge.”
Further down in the article, Miroff clarifies that a judge ordered Abrego Garcia not to be sent back to “his home country” — but that’s very different that having “protected legal status” that would shield Abrego Garcia from deportation entirely.
Abrego Garcia illegally crossed the border in 2011 and was “detained in March 2019 and charged with removability.” He was denied bond in 2019 after an immigration judge concluded that evidence “show[ed] [Abrego Garcia] is a verified member of MS-13” and that Abrego Garcia did not prove “that his release from custody would not pose a danger to others.”
The judge also found that Abrego Garcia was a flight risk, noting he had a “history of failing to appear for proceedings pertaining to his traffic violations.” As pointed out by Will Chamberlain, senior counsel at the Article 3 Project, the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissed Abrego Garcia’s appeal and “affirmed the immigration judge’s findings on dangerousness.”
Six months later, Abrego Garcia filed a new claim, this time for asylum, “withholding of removal to El Salvador,” and “protection under Article 3 of the Convention against Torture,” Chamberlain explained in a post. Notably, Abrego Garcia had every reason to want to stay in the United States: He had two brothers who were permanent residents, his fiancée was a citizen, and he was helping her raise her two children. Further, he and his fiancée also had a child together.
“And so, at this hearing applying for asylum, he testifies that he fears returning to El Salvador because the 18th street gang ‘was targeting him and threatening him with death because of his family’s pupusa business,’” Chamberlain pointed out. Despite claiming that he feared the gang would kill him, Abrego Garcia “never reported anything to the police,” according to Chamberlain, and later he still asserted he was afraid of being killed despite his family having ended the pupusa business.
The judge “found Abrego Garcia’s account ‘credible,’” Chamberlain explained, but was unable to grant Abrego Garcia’s asylum claim because the law stipulates that asylum seekers must prove that their “application has been filed within one year after the date of the alien’s arrival” in the country.
However, Abrego Garcia was granted a withholding of removal to El Salvador. But that’s not the same as a legal right to stay in the United States — it just means that he has a legal right not to be removed to one specific country. As Chamberlain explained, “Any third country would be sufficient.”
Whether Abrego Garcia shouldn’t have been deported specifically to El Salvador doesn’t change the fact that he nonetheless should have been removed from this country years ago. In fact, the only real scandal here is that he was able to stay for as long as he did.
But the propaganda press is playing fast and loose with the truth to serve its own agenda. The New York Times likewise put out inaccurate and deliberately misleading coverage. The Times’ Ali Watkins and Alan Feuer wrote that Abrego Garcia “was in the U.S. legally” multiple times throughout the story. They also falsely stated he was living “under protected legal status since October 2019.”
NBC News’ Patrick Smith and Gary Grumbach wrote that Abrego Garcia “is a legal resident protected by a 2019 court order that prevented him from being sent back to his home country.”
CNN described Abrego Garcia as a “Maryland father with protected legal status.” ABC News described him as a “Maryland man with protected legal status.”
The distortion of the facts isn’t a mere accident. The propaganda press has failed to fearmonger Americans into opposing Trump’s mass deportations thus far. In fact, a recent CBS News/YouGov poll found that 53 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, including his mass deportation plans.
To work around the popularity of Trump’s immigration policies, the media pounced on the deportation of an illegal alien with a nuanced withholding order whose case could be easily distorted and misportrayed.
Abrego Garcia was in fact ordered not to be deported to El Salvador, that much is true. But what the propaganda press failed to do was differentiate between a withholding order that prevented him from being sent to a single country and protected status. They chose to paint him as a “legal” immigrant who was supposed to be shielded from deportation because of some “status” he supposedly had before the Trump administration came in and ripped this “Maryland father” away from his family.
The media’s presentation is false. But obfuscating the fact — or just flat out lying about the facts — isn’t out of character for the Pravda press.
What better way for the media to shift public opinion on a popular Trump policy than to run cover for an illegal alien (who is likely part of a gang) and lie about the facts in order to bolster their anti-Trump hysteria?
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2
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