Michael Patrick Leahy, CEO and editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star, ridiculed the efforts by Democratic lawmakers to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the alleged MS-13 gang member and citizen of El Salvador who was deported last month, back to the U.S.
On Monday, Democratic U.S. Representatives Robert Garcia (D-CA-42), Maxwell Frost (D-FL-10), Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ-03), and Maxine Dexter (D-OR-03) traveled to El Salvador as part of a continuing effort from the left to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to Maryland.
In a series of social media videos posted by the Democrats who traveled to the Central American country on Monday, the lawmakers collectively glorified Abrego Garcia as a “husband,” “father,” and “union member,” claiming that he was “abducted” and that his case is a “constitutional crisis” and a “threat to all people who could be illegally abducted, detained, and transported internationally against their will.”
Leahy, however, disputed the lawmakers’ claims about Abrego Garcia, pointing out not only the legal facts surrounding his deportation case but also his troubled personal history.
Referring to the Democrats as an “off-key quartet” who lack common sense, Leahy said the lawmakers are defending an illegal alien who is simply indefensible as an “alleged human trafficker” and “wife-beater.”
“He wasn’t abducted. He had a final deportation order. He’s a member of MS-13. The president has determined MS-13 is a terrorist organization. He was legally detained. He’s a father, but they forgot to mention his wife got a restraining order because, according to her, he was beating her,” Leahy said on Tuesday’s edition of his talk radio show, The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
“He’s the guy that was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol here in December of 2022 driving a vehicle he claimed his boss owned with eight individuals inside…who couldn’t write, couldn’t speak English. He was transporting them from Houston, a hub of human trafficking through St. Louis, another hub in that category, and then making a detour down through Nashville…This is the poster child of who [the Democrats] care about,” Leahy added.
Leahy emphasized that Abrego Garcia’s deportation was legal and followed due process.
“Illegal aliens have limited due process rights only as it relates to the deportation process, and Kilmar Abrego Garcia has benefited from every one of those rights. Now, just because a saboteur Department of Justice attorney didn’t make that argument properly in district court and then got fired, does not mean his due process rights were violated,” Leahy explained.
To the Democrats’ claim that Abrego Garcia’s case is a “constitutional crisis,” Leahy argued that the real crisis is how the judiciary is undermining the constitutional separation of powers by challenging the president’s executive authority in immigration and foreign affairs.
“It’s not a constitutional crisis. It is a manufactured false claim of a constitutional crisis,” Leahy said.
“The president of the United States has executive power when it comes to foreign policy and national security, not the judges. It is the judges, the left wing judges, that are attempting to usurp the constitutional power of the president,” Leahy added.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Background Photo “El Salvador” by Xtremesv. CC BY-SA 2.0.
I am in complete agreement. But, simply saying “the democrats” does not help. Please provide the names and the districts of those Tennessee legislators who support Garcia