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Outcry as White House Admits to Sending Maryland Man to El Salvador Prison 'In Error'
"If Trump can disappear Abrego Garcia, he can disappear you," warned one advocate. "This is why due process matters. Without it, America slides into dictatorship."
Apr 01, 2025
"This is the precedent Trump needs to send you to a concentration camp," said one advocate for due process rights as President Donald Trump's administration claimed it had made an "administrative error" in sending a Maryland father to a prison in his home country of El Salvador—leaving the federal government with no way of bringing him back to his children and wife, a U.S. citizen.
In a court filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, an acting field office director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Robert L. Cerna, told Judge Paula Xinis that the removal of Kilmar Abrego Garcia on March 15 "was in error." Abrego Garcia was one of hundreds of people rounded up by the Trump administration and sent to a "Terrorism Confinement Center" in El Salvador, with the White House invoking the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II and claiming many were members of gangs including MS-13 and Tren de Aragua.
Cerna's filing reveals the result of a mass expulsion operation in which hundreds of people were afforded no due process rights in violation of the U.S. Constitution: At least one person with legal protected status in the United States who was not convicted of a crime is now imprisoned in a country where a U.S. federal court had previously found he could face persecution and torture.
As Joshua Eakle of Project Liberal warned, Abrego Garcia's detention and the administration's claim that it can do nothing to help him also creates precedent for Trump to do the same to anyone else it sees fit to target.
"This is how it starts. You must pay attention," said Eakle. "If Trump can disappear Abrego Garcia, he can disappear you. If Trump can strip his rights with no accountability, he can do it to anyone. This is why due process matters. Without it, America slides into dictatorship."
As the news spread of Abrego Garcia's mistaken expulsion, Vice President JD Vance "smeared him as a 'convicted gang member,'" claiming to cite the court filing from Monday, and accused podcast host Jon Favreau of having sympathy for "gang members getting deported while ignoring citizens they victimize."
Cerna's filing states that Abrego Garcia was denied bond in 2019 because "the evidence show[ed] that he is a verified member of [Mara Salvatrucha] ('MS-13')]" and therefore posed a danger to the community." As Kyle Cheney wrote at Politico, the accusation was "sharply contested" by Abrego Garcia and "credited to information gleaned from a confidential informant."
"That's not a conviction," said Cheney.
The 2019 court filing regarding the bond denial notes that Abrego Garcia "has no criminal conviction" and that the government erroneously stated at the time that Abrego Garcia was "detained in connection to a murder investigation."
Further, noted Cheney, the court at the time found that Abrego Garcia was likely a member of MS-13, but that he had a credible fear of persecution in his home country of El Salvador and should not be deported there—or expelled via an operation like Trump's mass expulsion campaign, in which those sent overseas have not been afforded due process.
Vance's claim that Abrego Garcia is a "convicted gang member" was "a lie," said Krystal Ball of the online news show "Breaking Points."
"But JD's comment reveals his deportation was not really a 'mistake,'" she said. "They put whoever they could round up on those planes without regard for guilt, innocence, immigration status, or court orders. If this man can be permanently disappeared into a foreign dungeon, anyone can."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council said it was "shocking that the vice president of the United States would so callously, and so falsely, accuse someone of being a convicted gang member. It's especially bad when his own administration just admitted to illegally deporting that person due to 'administrative error.'"
Trump's Justice Department is now urging Xinis to reject a petition filed by Abrego Garcia's attorneys to secure his return to the U.S., saying that since the Maryland resident is now in custody in his home country, the administration and the court system can't force El Salvador to return him.
"People should go to prison over this," said Paul Blest, a reporter for More Perfect Union.
Antonio De Loera-Brust, communications director for United Farm Workers, suggested the Trump administration is now refusing to push for Abrego Garcia or other potentially innocent people who have been expelled from the U.S. "because then they will be able to speak for themselves and the full extent of this atrocity will become clear."
Shannon Watts, founder of the gun violence prevention group Moms Demand Action, called on the Democratic Party to ensure the administration can't ignore the demand for Abrego Garcia's release.
"I don't care what the polls say about immigration, this is a legal assault on the Constitution and humanity," said Watts. "Democratic leaders must publicly pressure the Trump administration to rescue Kilmar Abrego Garcia."
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Vance Calls Greenland 'Cold as Sh*t'—Just Like the Local Reaction to His Visit
Greenlanders are giving the administration of President Donald Trump—who renewed threats to take the Danish territory—the cold shoulder.
Mar 28, 2025
U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Second Lady Usha Vance, and two top Trump administration officials traveled to Greenland on Friday on an itinerary that was markedly curtailed from its original plans due to Greenlanders' frosty reception amid President Donald Trump's ongoing threats to take the Arctic island from NATO ally Denmark—even by armed force if deemed necessary.
Vance visited Pituffik Space Base—a U.S. Space Force installation on the northwestern coast of Greenland about 930 miles (1,500 km) north of the capital, Nuuk—with his wife, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
The vice president's wife originally planned on a more interactive and cultural itinerary, including attending a dogsled race. However, Greenland's leftist government said earlier this week that is had "not extended any invitations for any visits, neither private nor official."
Compounding the Trump administration's embarrassment, U.S. representatives reportedly came up empty handed after canvassing door to door in Nuuk in an effort to drum up support for the visit. The administration denies this ever happened.
And so the Trump officials' audience was limited to U.S. troops stationed at Pituffik. After arriving at the base, the vice president told troops in the mess hall he was surprised to find the snow- and ice-covered Arctic island is "cold as shit."
"Nobody told me!" he added.
Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance visited a U.S. Space Force base in Greenland Friday. Vance is expected to receive briefings on Arctic security and address US service members.
Read more: https://t.co/1OIkkT3VnD pic.twitter.com/lbXeObJTgq
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) March 28, 2025
Getting down to more serious business, Vance said: "Our message to Denmark is very simple—you have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have under-invested in the people of Greenland and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful land mass."
Addressing Arctic geopolitics, Vance argued that "we can't just bury our head in the sand—or in Greenland, bury our head in the snow—and pretend that the Chinese are not interested in this very large land mass. We know that they are."
"The president said we have to have Greenland, and I think that we do have to be more serious about the security of Greenland," Vance continued. "We respect the self-determination of the people of Greenland, but my argument to them is: I think that you'd be a lot better coming under the United States' security umbrella than you have been under Denmark's security umbrella. Because what Denmark's security umbrella has meant is effectively they've passed it all off to brave Americans and hoped that we would pick up the tab."
This follows remarks earlier this week from Vance, who said during a Fox News interview that Denmark, which faithfully sent troops to fight in both Afghanistan and Iraq—43 of whom died, the highest per capita casualty rate of the alliance—is "not being a good ally" to the United States.
Asked by reporters on Friday if the U.S. would ever conquer Greenland by military force, Vance said he didn't think that would be necessary.
However, just a day earlier, Trump—who on Friday posted a video highlighting defense cooperation between the U.S. and Greenland—said his administration will "go as far as we have to go" to acquire the island, which he claimed the United States needs "for national security and international security."
It was far from the first time that Trump—who has also threatened to take over parts or all of countries including Panama and even Canada—vowed to annex Greenland, and other administration officials have repeated the president's threats.
"It's oil and gas. It's our national security. It's critical minerals," Waltz said in January, explaining why Trump wants Greenland.
The U.S. has long been interested in Greenland, and while the close relationship between the United States and Denmark has been mostly mutually beneficial, it has sometimes come at the expense of Greenland's people, environment, and wildlife.
Such was the case when a U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber laden with four thermonuclear warheads crashed into the sea ice of Wolstenholme Fjord in 1968. The accident caused widespread radioactive contamination, and the nuclear fuel components of one of the bombs remain unrecovered to this day.
Elected officials from across Greenland and Denmark's political spectrum expressed alarm over the Trump administration's actions.
Outgoing Greenland Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede earlier this week
called Vance's trip "highly aggressive" and said that it "can in no way be characterized as a harmless visit."
"Because what is the security advisor doing in Greenland?" Egede asked. "The only purpose is to show a demonstration of power to us, and the signal is not to be misunderstood."
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke called Vance's remarks on Friday "a bit inappropriate," adding that maybe the Trump administration "should look at yourself in the mirror too."
"When the vice president.. creates an image that the only way Greenland can be protected is by coming under the American umbrella, so you can say that Greenland is already there," Løkke elaborated. "They are part of the common security umbrella that we created together with the Americans after the end of World War II called NATO."
"We have always looked at America like the nice big brother to help you out and now it's like the big brother is bullying you."
Ordinary Greenlanders and Danish residents of the island were not happy about the Trump delegation's visit.
Anders Laursen, who owns a local water taxi company, toldNBC News that "we have always looked at America like the nice big brother to help you out and now it's like the big brother is bullying you."
Nuuk resident Marie Olsen said of Vance, "I think he's a big child who wants it all."
In the Danish capital Copenhagen, hundreds of people rallied Friday against the U.S. delegation's visit to Greenland. One protester decried what she called the U.S. administration's "mafia methods."
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'Unabashed Fascism': Trump Executive Order Targets 'Improper Ideology' at Smithsonian
"First Trump removes any reference of diversity from the present—now he's trying to remove it from our history," wrote one Democratic lawmaker. "You cannot erase our past and you cannot stop us from fulfilling our future."
Mar 28, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump has elicited a fresh wave of anger after he signed an executive order on Thursday targeting exhibits or programs critical of the United States at the Smithsonian Institution, a sprawling network of largely free museums and Washington, D.C.'s National Zoo.
The order aims to prevent federal money from going to displays that "divide Americans based on race" or "promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law and policy," as well as remove "improper ideology" from Smithsonian's museums, education centers, and research centers.
"This is unabashed fascism," wrote the journalist Lauren Wolfe on X on Thursday. Amy Rutenberg, a history professor at Iowa State University, wrote: "Last week, while visiting several Smithsonian museums, I kept wondering how long it would take for this administration to direct exhibits to be pulled. Not long, it turns out."
Another observer, journalist and founding editor of the outlet SpyTalk Jeff Stein,remarked that "Trump goes full-on Soviet with intent to scrub Smithsonian museums etc. of 'improper ideology.'"
The move highlights Trump's desire to reshape not only American politics, but cultural institutions too.
The order, which included an accompanying fact sheet, also directs U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to reinstate monuments, memorials, statues, and other properties that have been taken down or altered since the beginning of 2020 to "perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology."
The order also specifies that U.S. Vice President JD Vance—a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents—will be tasked with identifying and appointing Smithsonian board members "who are committed to advancing the celebration of America's extraordinary heritage and progress."
The executive order singles out specific museums, like the African American History and Culture, and a "forthcoming" American Women's History Museum plan to celebrate what the White House described as "the exploits of male athletes participating in women's sports."
"Once widely respected as a symbol of American excellence and a global icon of cultural achievement, the Smithsonian Institution has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology," according to the executive order.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) connected Trump's targeting of Smithsonian to his administration's attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
"First Trump removes any reference of diversity from the present—now he's trying to remove it from our history. Let me be PERFECTLY clear—you cannot erase our past and you cannot stop us from fulfilling our future," she wrote on X on Thursday.
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