On March 15, 2025, ICE deported Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, where he is (to the best of anyone’s knowledge) being imprisoned without trial. While Garcia was born in El Salvador, he had legal status in the United States, a status much like asylum. Garcia is married to an American citizen and he is father to two American-citizen children. The Trump administration referred to Garcia’s deportation as “an administration error,” but the administration has done nothing to rectify the situation. On April 10th, the Supreme Court voted unanimously that Garcia’s deportation was illegal and ordered the Trump administration to do what they could to bring this poor man back to his wife and children.
On Monday, Donald Trump had an Oval Office meeting with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who calls himself the “world’s coolest dictator.” Bukele has had a months-long agreement with Trump to “take” all of the people being disappeared by the Trump administration. These are not deportations – deportation is a legal process. This situation is just… ICE rounding up people they “think” are illegal immigrants, ignoring whatever their legal status might be, and sending them off to an El Savadorian hellhole prison, never to be heard from again. Before the White House press pool came into the Oval, Trump told Bukele that “home-growns are next” and “you gotta build about five more places.” Then everyone in the room laughed:
Trump to Bukele: "Home-growns are next. The home-growns. You gotta build about five more places. It's not big enough." pic.twitter.com/o20thGNK9e
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 14, 2025
It’s just… what everyone knew would happen. This is what Trump supporters voted for. They knew exactly what would happen and this is what they wanted to happen. Once the WH press pool came into the Oval, Trump was asked about Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. Would you believe that Trump doesn’t intend to comply with a Supreme Court order?
In an Oval Office meeting with President Trump on Monday, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador said that he would not return a Maryland man who was wrongly deported from the United States and sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
“Of course I’m not going to do it,” Mr. Bukele said when reporters asked if he was willing to help return the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whose case is at the heart of a legal battle that has gone to the Supreme Court.
Mr. Bukele said returning Mr. Abrego Garcia would be akin to smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.” As the Salvadoran president talked, Mr. Trump smiled in approval, surrounded by cabinet members who spoke in support of the president on cue.
The Supreme Court last week ordered the administration to “facilitate” Mr. Abrego Garcia’s return. But in a legal filing on Sunday, the Justice Department argued that the courts lacked the ability to dictate steps the White House should take to return Mr. Abrego Garcia, because only the president had the power to handle U.S. foreign policy. The meeting in the Oval Office on Monday was a blunt example of Mr. Trump’s defiance of the courts. The president and his top White House officials said the decision over Mr. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old father of three, would have to be made by Mr. Bukele.
The Trump administration has justified its use of a wartime authority to deport migrants to El Salvador by alleging that they are members of violent gangs like MS-13, which originated in the United States and operates in South America, and the Venezuelan criminal group Tren de Aragua. While some of the deportees had criminal convictions, court papers have shown that the evidence the government has relied on to label some of them gang members was often little more than whether they had tattoos or had worn clothing associated with a criminal organization.
This is the first time I’ve ever seen Bukele speak or operate – I figured he would be slavishly devoted to Trump, but that’s not the dynamic at all. They’re birds of a feather – they treat each other as equals, as mob syndicate chiefs working in tandem. I guess what I’m saying is that Bukele is doing what Trump wants, but they’re clearly in business together, and Bukele is getting something out of this.
Bukele: I don't have the power to return him to the United States. pic.twitter.com/TJIYJFrRm5
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 14, 2025
Photos courtesy of Getty.
He can start by exchanging himself for Kilmar Abrego-Garcia.
The media asks questions but doesn’t push back on the answers. They’re just stenographers at this point and a big part of the reason why we are in this horrible place. Abrego Garcia is not a criminal nor is he a terrorist. Even the Trump regime lawyers have admitted as much. There are other cases like this and this is just the situation with the people who who were here legally. But even undocumented people who have been rounded up should not have been renditioned to this Central American hellhole controlled by a guy who thinks a dictator can be cool. The media thinks that by standing in the Oval and asking questions of “cool” dictators it is doing its job. In reality, it’s just helping them spread their propaganda because these reporters never challenge the disinformation. The media is complicit.
There was a pile on on Kaitlyn Collins for asking the question, by trump and several of his minions. And the less they challenge him the more abuse they get. There was no media solidarity with the exclusion of AP and half of those present seem to be from the trump humping side of the aisle. I’m not holding out much hope for improvement.
Trump paid him millions of dollars (actually WE paid him) to imprison these kidnapped men. And of course Trump isn’t going to listen to the Supreme Court after their ruling last year that everything he does as President is legal. He is truly a dictator.
and yet Trump moved mountains to get the Tate brothers freed from Romania
The Tate bros have access to and a proven success rate of reaching young, unhappy guys who eagerly drink up a deeply disturbing, violent, and misogynistic version of masculinity. Their world view fits in very nicely with Trumps, and I can imagine that he wants them to be able to continue to interact with their incel followers. This is worth money and votes.
Honestly and sandly, I believe that poor man is already dead…
Meant to write sadly…
Yes, it’s really similar to what we learned about WWII in school. I’m so scared.
The administration claims he’s alive but without proof, there’s really no reason to believe it.
And let’s face it: they have every reason to keep him there because if they release him or any of the people they detained then they come back and describe the hell they went through. Our dictator doesn’t want that.
This is my take. Either he’s no longer alive, or the administration doesn’t want him back because they don’t want anyone here finding out how bad the prisons there actually are.
If it is the latter that means no one sent there is coming back.
We must remove Trump et al. from office, ASAP. He’s going to destroy the country.
HOW? He has been impeached twice but not convicted. The Republicans are too afraid of him to stand up to him and vote for impeachment.
Massive, unrelenting protests. A general strike. We can’t wait for Republicans—or even Democrats. It’s up to us.
This is just awful. Apparently Bukele boasts that nobody has never being able to leave CECOT so he’s never going to allow Kilmar Abrego Garcia to leave and Trump is breaking the law by disregarding the Supreme Court. I would hope that this would stop the Supreme Court from being slavish to the Trump Administration in the future but I’m doubtful.
Trump knows he can get away with anything because the Supreme Court gave him immunity. He will do what he wants. It’s terrifying
Right! He doesn’t even need to “disappear” people. He could just line them up and shoot them and say that it was part of his ‘official duties.”
We are living under a dictatorship, never thought it would happen. They have centralised the media. They are scapegoating undocumented humans. They have brainwashed the people. I bet his staffers are afraid of giving him bad news.
They are scapegoating documented humans too. And then whatever tf “home-growns” means, which is probably anyone that dissents, American or no.
I am scared to think Home Grown is US Citizens who arent drinking the KoolAid that the Maggots are. When he gets to the point of punishing citizens who arent in lock step with his agenda
This morning on my drive to work, a house that has had Trump flags and Let’s Go Brandon flags up forever suddenly has taken them down. Perhaps there’s hope that even the cult members are waking up.
Most of the homes on my way to work have taken all of their stuff down too. I’m seeing that either as a good sign or as fear.
Before the election fewer houses in this area were decked out in mango merchandise, which gave me hope for this 70% dark red area. 😔 I really think people are afraid of the hardcore magats that turn against mango and are scared of the mentally ill fanatics. I have actually seen an uptick in people with vulgar mango menace signage on their vehicles though. Odd that the same people who will call democrats pedophiles and baby killers have cars decked out with mango flipping the bird and using vulgarity, isn’t it? I fear this gentleman has been unalived and all this bluster is to cover up the nature of his death and to scare the opposition.
When the majority of “we the people” actually voted for, and actually want this stuff to happen, then you know it’s the beginning of the end. Nations are destroyed from within (then they’re overrun by a foreign power). It breaks my heart. We’re seeing our country destroy itself with Trump at the helm.
The majority of the people didn’t vote for this. Ignoring all the people who didn’t vote… the Republicans still disenfranchised a ton of people to get Trump to win.
This isn’t rounding up people.
It’s essential it’s named.
It’s human trafficking. It’s kidnapping.
It’s kidnapping people to be tortured in a gulag.
It’s against every human rights convention in the world.
A former Biden administration official (can’t remember which one at the moment) has suggested that Democratic state attorneys general start charging the Trump administration with kidnapping.
It’s worth a try.
Hopefully I am wring, but I don’t think Abrego Garcia is still alive. That’s why they are refusing to bring his back.
I really should proof read before I hit enter. lol
I’ve been thinking the same thing.
So does he think he is a king with his own penal colony or a dictator with his own Siberia? This gets more frightening and I didn’t think that was possible.
I think this is it. These guys in power envision a new world order of dictators and this El Salvadoran one gets to run the penal colony. It’s horrifying to see that we the people are only pawns in their game, not citizens to whom he is accountable for protection
Yes, the mainstream media is complicit. We are in a full-blown constitutional crisis, and the media treats Trump blowing off a Supreme Court ruling like a political game.
I believe there is a new hearing scheduled for today (?) in Maryland. The judge in this case is pressing the DOJ for daily updates, which have been thin. She may rule to hold them in contempt and send them to jail for ignoring orders. So we’ll see.
In the meantime, a senator from MD says he will go to El Salvador in the coming days to find and return Garcia. I imagine it would be with a news crew and reporters in tow. I hope they can return him safely and he can share with everyone what the conditions are like at that prison.
Oh my gosh. I hope they take security, document everything, and get real information. Unlike those disgusting glamor shots Barbie Noem did in front of hundreds of posed prisoners.
I know people here get it but I’m not sure Americans fully comprehend what’s happening. He’s threatening to denaturalize Americans and send them to a foreign concentration camp. And I know Trump-supporters don’t care because in their mind, they’re safe. They support him–they’ll be protected. But I’m willing to bet that there are some MAGAts who have college-aged kids who don’t share the same politics. If a student protester engages in even mild civil disobedience and gets arrested, what’s to stop this administration from labeling them a terrorist and sending them to the El Salvadoran gulag? People NEED to get fucking real about what this means. Yes, it’s bad now but we’re heading to the darkest place imaginable. He’s paving the way to deport anyone who doesn’t support him and the MAGAts need to realize that could absolutely be their loved ones as well.
It makes me sick to my stomach how stupidly unaware of history these people are. Situations like these never end up well for ANYONE. Even Putin’s oligarchs have to walk on eggshells because they know they can fall out of windows at any time if they step out of line in his view. Maybe it’s that stupid American exceptionalism myth that makes these people think it’s going to be different for them.
@ Sue-Definitely American exceptionalism and complacency. We keep expecting some one to step in and save us from this insanity. The Supreme Court is the last fail stop and if they refuse to defend the Constitution as per their oat then there is no end to the madness and we are in a full blown Constitutional crisis and a dictatorship to boot.
he’s not just limiting it to denaturalizing immigrants, he’s also talking about native born americans. Of Course the 1/3 of AmeriKKKans that are MAGA are probably foaming at the mouth at the chance to start denouncing their neighbors and coworkers that they hate and want to have sent to concentration camps
Yeah he says he wants to start with American prisoners but we all know where that ends. And as I said above, MAGAts might be loving the idea now but they won’t when it’s their fucking family member or friend, trust.
People need to review the different badges for Auschwitz. It wasn’t just yellow stars. They killed lgbt, socialists, anyone who was seen as a disrupter.
Then the disabled then the elderly until they realised that they were getting rid of those most likely to vote for Turnip.
He’s also admired other countries for expelling “unproductive people”, so I worry for anyone who’s disabled or underemployed.
As historians have pointed out, the first Nazi concentration camps were in other countries, too.
https://www.stolpersteine-paderborn.de/projekt/opfergruppen-des-nationalsozialismus/
German page with the victim groups. The page can be translated with Google or Deepl and shows the full horror of the groups of people persecuted by a dictatorship.
Sadly, cult mentality rules. Parents abandon children for differing beliefs. Some parents would probably turn in their own children. I personally made sure to cut off access to certain family members and sent out notice I moved, no note of where.
This is heartbreaking for SrAbrego Garcia. I pray he is still alive, and can return to the US and be with his family. I don’t trust dump and bozolele though..
No! We have to fight against this!!!
Tell me how?!!! The best we’ve got is to hold up signs and yell while we’re at the protests – and call our spineless Senators and Representatives.
And get arrested and sent to El Salvador.
Send Melania to El Salvador! She fits the bill for deportation!.
Grotesque Nazi sh*t.
Where my brain went when I heard “home growns” yesterday terrified me. I can only imagine who he means and in what order.
What is all of that tacky cheap looking gold crap on the mantel in the Oval and where did the ivy go?
Ooohh boy. I have Filipino friends who were either born there and thus gained American citizenship or friends who have married American citizens (be it Filipino Americans or white Americans) and are ardent supporters of dump because they are against illegal immigration and “higher taxes” and some other poor excuse. So him targeting people like them is no surprise and I have no sympathy for them.
oh america… you forked up so bad… Putin is facing strong competition.
A co-worker of mine who Loves Trump is from El Salvador and is currently there visiting family, I’m wondering if he’ll be allowed back into the US. If not, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to look concerned.
I wish the press corps would stand together and start revamping their questions to Donald, as “Why are you too weak to secure the return of Mr. Garcia? Why don’t you have the power to demand the return of a prisoner you’re paying the rent for?”
The plan is to normalize disappearing people with no due process or proof of wrongdoing. Then they will begin deporting certain ‘undesirable’ groups of people.