Bulwark Takes - Trump Backs Down? Abrego Garcia Back in US After Legal Pressure

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

Sam Stein, Andrew Egger and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at American Immigration Council, discuss the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S. after being sent to El Salvadoran prison without due process, and what this case means for the many others wrongly deported to El Salvador.

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This free virtual event brings together leaders like Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Governor Andy Beshear and others for real talk and real solutions. Together we'll tackle the most urgent issues facing rural America. Register today or learn more at ruralprogress.com. Hey guys, Sam Stein, managing editor at The Bullwork here.

I'm joined by Andrew Egger and Aaron Reichlin Melnick, who is senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. And we are going to be discussing some breaking news. Kilmer Abrego Garcia, wrongfully deported to El Salvador in a case that has garnered an incredible amount of attention, political wrangling, legal maneuvering. He is now back in America. He is facing charges in the middle district of Tennessee. There was just a press conference with attorney general Pam Bondi where she

announced the charges. There's a ton to unpack in this case. And I'm grateful that Aaron has joined us in short notice to discuss it. Less grateful about Andrew, but we're letting him tag along. Before we get into it, subscribe to our feed. We appreciate that for sure. All right. So Aaron, give us the rundown about what we know at this current moment, which is like 4 15 PM on a Friday. Definitely feels like a Friday news dump. Although I will say Bondi went out there and tried to champion this as like a big breakthrough

for American justice. What do we know? Yeah. Well, the most important thing that we know is despite months of claims that Kilmar Abrego-Garcia was not coming back, he is being brought back to the United States. However, they are trying to avoid saying that they brought him back to follow the court orders

they've been defying and are saying that he was brought back pursuant to a criminal arrest warrant on charges of alien smuggling under 8 USC 1324 that he allegedly did in Tennessee. They're also making some pretty wild allegations about broader criminal conspiracy lasting potentially years, but it's important to note

that none of that is actually charged. The charging document says, among other things, that he, while in the United States, was transporting undocumented aliens from Texas primarily throughout the country, that he transported firearms. There's some hearsay about him abusing undocumented females. It's innocent until proven guilty.

It's a charging document. I want to stress that. Now, you're making the important distinction, which is that they're not, they're deliberately saying we're not responding to the Supreme Court order. They're just saying we're charging him in a separate manner. Is that a distinction without a big difference or is it a big difference? I mean, it's a distinction without a difference. And especially because they have effectively admitted that the only reason they did this allegedly deep investigation into him in the first place is because they sent him to El

Salvador and because this case became such a big deal. And crucially, of course, we don't know whether he's guilty or not guilty of these charges, but importantly, he will get due process for these criminal charges. He will have a lawyer. He'll be able to defend himself and go in front of a judge and argue about whether these charges are accurate. And Andrew, this is what's been getting me like about this whole thing is that, you know, defenders of the administration say, oh, this guy's horrible. He's a wife abuser.

He was here illegally. He should have been deported. How could you champion this guy? And I twitch I'm like, yeah, cool. Like I get it. I understand it. He probably you know, he's alleged to have done pretty bad things. Give him his due give him his day in court. But you cannot defy a court order to not send him to El Salvador. That's not a rational. You can't rationalize that by saying, Oh,

he's a bad person. And this to me at least seems, seems to be them admitting, or at least backing down from that confrontation, which is they sent him wrongfully to El Salvador. They've taken him back from El Salvador. It does appear, like at least on that very important front, they blinked. Yeah, and they blinked. And I think there are real degrees of difference when it comes to the intensity of the injustice here. You could certainly still quibble.

I'm sure we all would still quibble and say, okay, plainly this is not a disinterested prosecution. Plainly, they went fishing, they went to see what they could find about this guy. We'll find out whether or not it's true. And you could say, is that really like the equal application of justice? You could make the argument, well, of course, if they uncovered criminality for any reason, it should probably be tried.

People can disagree about that. But the central thing here is that the thing that none of us should disagree about, which is that he should not have been held in a pen in a foreign nation with this entire process having been short-circuited, that at the very least they have now been compelled to find a face-saving way to comply with these orders and to bring him back.

I want to dwell on that point just really briefly because Pam Bondi made this point repeatedly in her press conference where she was saying, you know, we got this indictment and then we took it to President McHale and he very graciously agreed to send him back over and so now we to send him back over. And so now we're taking him back. I mean, nobody with a brain and a pulse thinks that Buckele was down there like, well, I'll give him back to you,

but only if you can give me a really good reason. You know what I mean? And the administration had been under orders, for months now, to do everything they could to bring him back. And so I think that really does kind of put a highlight and just kind of underline how, how bizarre and untenable the status quo has been. So yes, again, they found a face saving way to bring him back, but at least they are now in compliance with, with these orders that they've been right.

I mean, the whole, the whole pretense was we could not compel, we kind of like to give him back to us when it was the Supreme Court that says you have to make what was the actual term? Facilitate. You have to facilitate his return. They say, well, we can't because Bukele won't give him back to us. And so what do you expect us to do? Well, they could, right, Aaron? I mean, that's what this ended up being. Yeah. What this clearly shows is that when the government asks, the Bukele administration will respond. And of course, the very strong thing that we heard from President Trump multiple times when asked this question is that he had never asked because Pam Bondi had never asked him to ask. And in fact, when the judge,

Judge Sinis, in his case, asked the government repeatedly whether or not they had been making any real efforts to bring him back, they kept saying, no, we haven't really tried. We've just confirmed that he was in Salvador in custody and therefore we stopped there. And I think that is a very key thing here because of course Mr. Abrego Garcia is not the only person who is still held in SICOT. There are still hundreds of people who are sent there, many of whom are very clearly innocent, like Andres Hernandez Romero, of any criminal offense. And those people could also be brought back if the Trump administration just requests it. Now, do you think this provides a precedent for the defendant's lawyers to say, hey, you can do this in this case, do it for my client?

Absolutely. And of course, the government will dodge and it will claim, well, this was a criminal arrest warrant. That's obviously different. But I don't see how it is. This shows quite clearly that the US government can bring these people back if it wants. And as much as you saw Bondi at this press conference saying over and over again, we asked, we asked, you know, trying to emphasize that he was in Salvador in custody. The key thing there is the United States government asked El Salvador agreed. All right. Let's play Bondi quickly. And then Andrew, I want to get your reaction to her on the other side. Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice.

On May 21st, a grand jury in the Middle District of Tennessee returned a sealed indictment charging Abrego Garcia with alien smuggling and conspiracy to commit alien smuggling in violation of Title 8 USC 1324. We want to thank President Bukele for agreeing to return Abrego Garcia to the United States. Our government presented El Salvador with an arrest warrant and they agreed to return him to our country. We're grateful to President Bukele for agreeing to return him to our country to face these very serious charges.

This is what American justice looks like. Upon completion of his sentence, we anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador. All right, Edgar, what do you think of that? Yeah, there's just so much that's kind of funhouse mirror upside down and backwards about that whole thing. I mean, she keeps talking about justice, right? Now, this is what justice looks like. We're bringing him back to face justice. Well, what were you doing before? I mean, the guy has been in custody. He's been in prison for months and months on these pretextuals. So like, you don't want to live in a situation where you're like, this guy is coming to the United States to face justice for these serious

crimes and like have everybody be like, well, at least thank God, you know, thank God now he's like back in US custody, right? I mean, it's such a, such a bizarre. He could have faced justice without sending him to El Salvador Yeah, yeah And it was a point this and the other thing that it really gets at is this this I mean there there are you know Different tiers of of just I mean like you don't need to be able to bring criminal charges against a person in order to deport Them right. I mean like there's there's there is justifiably a lower standard for people who are in the country illegally in terms of like the the stuff that you have to prove as an immigration judge or whatever in order to you know

sign a deportation order and send somebody back to where they came from and think everybody realizes why that is Requires a lower, you know burden of proof than to prove criminal charges against a person But now we're in this bizarre situation where all of these people on only that lower barrier burden approved, and even for these particular people, not even that burden approved, because even the immigration court process has been skipped and short-circuited, and they're all now moldering in prison in El Salvador.

So now we're in this bizarre, bizarre situation where it's like the only way people are getting out of there and the only kind of like act of mercy that's shown to them is to be able to now bring them forward on politically motivated charges back in the United States of America. I mean, it's so it's all so ass backwards and strange. So again, like, again, I just keep coming back to it's good that he's here. If he did these things, he should be tried for them in the United States of America and face justice for that. And I would hope that, you know, that's not the only way that any of these people are ever going to get out of CICOT is by the US finding some face saving crime to try them with. Yes, for sure. And I want to add something really quickly to that because this is actually in contrast to what the Trump administration has been doing.

In other cases, the administration over the last few months has actually moved to dismiss criminal charges against multiple very senior MS-13 lieutenants and leaders so that they can be deported back to El Salvador without facing justice in the United States. So here you have people who have very similar criminal charges. Well, the answer is apparently because those people are alleged to have worked with Bukele prior to the time when he broke with, allegedly broke with MS-13 and began the state of exception where he cracked down and arrested thousands of people. Prior to that, there was a truce, there was a deal between the Salvadoran government and the gangs,

and some of the people who were part of that truce were in US criminal custody facing very serious charges. And they had their charges dismissed so they could be sent back to El Salvador before they actually got into court. Whereas Mr. Abrego Garcia is being brought back for significantly less serious criminal charges, which Pam Bondi said is about facing justice.

So I think that is a really clear example of, you know, you have one, a group of people alleged to have committed very serious crimes in the United States against American citizens and others. And then two, you have somebody who's alleged for smuggling, which is a serious offense, but nothing like what those people are alleged to being brought back. And that really shows the double standard. Aaron, close us out here. What should we expect to be the next steps for like what those people are alleged to being brought back. And that really shows the double standard. Aaron, close that here. What should we expect to be the next steps for Abrego Garcia here? And could it result in deportation to El Salvador?

Yeah, of course, the next steps are going to be a criminal trial. Or he would plead guilty. Crucially, we don't know yet what all of the substance of the allegations are. All we have is the indictment. There is a whole full criminal process that is going to go forward. And throughout that process, he will be in the United States. His family will be able to visit him. He will not be held incommunicado from the outside world. And at the end of that process, he will either see charges dropped or be found not guilty, or will be convicted and sentenced, where afterwards he would serve time in the United States. At that point, he will likely be deported, but not certainly.

He's already had received protection in the past from El Salvador, and if anything, the instances that we've seen here, the fact that Salvadoran President Bukele knows his name, knows his story individually, could theoretically bolster a case for protection against being deported back there. So it's possible that at the end of this long process that he does get deported again, but it's possible at the end of this very long process that he's going to end up somewhat like a situation he was in before this all started. Well, it's been quite a journey. It's shocking to think that what we've gone through around this one man and this ordeal, but it's really tested the limits of our laws and constitution. I would argue that today probably was a good day if you are worried about laws and constitution.

We did see the administration blink, Aaron. Thank you so much Andrew Thank you so much really appreciate it. Thank you guys for tuning in and watching on YouTube We appreciate that as well subscribe to the feed and we give you more conversations just like this in the future Talk to you later