Facing mounting criticism over wrongly deporting a Maryland father to a notorious Salvadoran prison, President Donald Trump's administration is digging in on the issue while also trying to change the narrative.
- Trump promised “the largest deportation in the history of our country” while on the 2024 campaign trail, part of a hardline immigration message that also included tougher border enforcement and other measures. It was one of the top issues animating the White House race that returned Trump to power.
Now, the Trump administration is pushing back hard as his deportation efforts that have dominated the nation's agenda over the last three months faces its biggest test so far.
“It’s mind boggling the priorities of the modern day Democrat party,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on April 15 when asked about Democrats' immigration approach, including plans by Sen. Chris Van Hollen to fly to El Salvador to help one of his constituents, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the wrongfully-deported Maryland man.
“If you’re an elected Republican this is a spot where you want to take a stand," said Mark Bednar, a GOP strategist and former House Republican leadership aide. "This is an important space electorally for Republicans."
'One of the primary reasons I was elected'
A number of deportation cases in recent weeks have captivated the nation and the world, including Andry José Hernandez, a gay Venezuelan makeup artist who was sent to El Salvador's mega prison, and foreign students who had their visas revoked under controversial circumstances.
Abrego Garcia's case has attracted the most notoriety, though. The Maryland father and sheet metal worker was sent to the same supermax prison in El Salvador as Hernandez, where suspected members of the criminal gangs MS-13 and Tren de Aragua are being held.
A lower court said Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported, and the Supreme Court ruled April 10 that the Trump administration must facilitate his return to the U.S..
"Kilmar was illegally ABDUCTED and deported by the Trump Admin. He must be brought home NOW," Van Hollen said on social media.
Trump administration officials have been defiant by turning up the dial on deportation critics through social media channels and press conferences and slamming Democrats who question the legality and morality of some deportation moves.
“First and foremost he was illegally in our country," U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said of Abrego Garcia during Trump's April 14 White House meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. She added that returning him is “up to El Salvador.”
The president then turned to top adviser Stephen Miller, a chief architect of the administration's immigration policies, to respond to a question about returning Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
"He's a citizen of El Salvador so it's very arrogant even for American media to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens," Miller said.
After Van Hollen made the trip to El Salvador, Leavitt invited the mother of a Maryland woman who was killed by a man from El Salvador to speak at the White House, evoking Trump’s campaign events, which often featured family members of individuals slain by undocumented migrants. The slain woman's brother spoke at the Republican National Convention last summer in Milwaukee.
With the press conference, the White House sought to highlight a crime committed by a migrant who came to the country without authorization. Though Abrego Garcia is not a U.S. citizen, a federal judge granted him a protective order allowing him to remain in the country. Abrego Garcia arrived in the U.S. in 2011 after he fled El Salvador to escape persecution by gangs, according to court documents.
The Trump administration says Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13 – a claim a U.S. district judge said the administration had not provided evidence to support, according to court documents.
Trump deferred questions about the Abrego Garcia case to administration lawyers when asked about it in the Oval Office on April 17, and he pivoted to defending his immigration policies.
"We're doing a fantastic job of getting criminals out of this country," the president said, adding that immigration enforcement was "one of the primary reasons I was elected."
"That's what the public wanted and that's what I'm doing," Trump added.
'The constitutional crisis is here'
Democrats have pounced on the recent deportation efforts to portray Trump as lawless.
“The constitutional crisis is here,” Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif, posted on social media. “President Trump is disobeying lawful court orders. His advisors and allies are cheering him on. And Kilmar Abrego Garcia remains trapped in a jail in El Salvador.”
Joe Rogan, a popular podcaster who endorsed Trump, said on his March 29 show that Hernandez’ case is “horrific.”
"You gotta get scared that people who are not criminal are getting, like, lassoed up and deported and sent to like El Salvador prisons,” Rogan said, adding that "innocent gay hairdressers" shouldn't be "lumped up with the gangs.”
Trump has long espoused a hardline immigration message, though, centering each of his three presidential campaigns around the issue - and Republicans say his recent efforts signal this is a political fight the White House wants to have with its opponents.
- “Although the terrain might seem a bit bumpy, President Trump is fighting Democrats on a battleground of his choosing," Bednar said. "If I were a Democrat that’s not where you want to be.”
- University of California Irvine political science professor Matthew Beckmann said that as Trump’s deportation plan plays out it could generate more opposition as the “tradeoffs” become clear.
- “Americans who support deportations in the abstract can readily find cause to oppose the time, place, or manner of deportations in any given case,” Beckmann said.
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