Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, said the Left’s legal efforts attempting to block the Trump administration’s deportations of illegal aliens may end up backfiring in the case of alleged human smuggler and citizen of El Salvador, Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Earlier this month, Abrego Garcia was transported from the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador to Nashville, where he pleaded not guilty in a federal court after the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charged him with participating in a criminal conspiracy to smuggle illegal aliens throughout the country for nearly a decade.
On Sunday, Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ruled against the DOJ in its request to hold a detention hearing for Abrego Garcia; however, the judge also acknowledged that Abrego Garcia would remain in federal custody upon transfer to an ICE facility when released from DOJ custody.
Less than 24 hours after the judge denied the DOJ’s request for a detention hearing, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a related case to allow the Trump administration to resume quick deportations of certain illegal aliens to countries other than their own without prior warning.
In the case of Abrego Garcia, the Left’s legal strategy to delay or prevent deportation for illegal aliens appears to have backfired, Pappert said on Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
Pappert explained that the magistrate judge’s ruling, combined with the new Supreme Court ruling, has opened the door for Abrego Garcia’s immediate deportation, not to the countries of El Salvador or Guatemala, which were previously restricted under a 2019 final deportation order, but to a third safe country, such as South Sudan.
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia, as I understand it, could be deported on Wednesday with no additional decision from a judge. He doesn’t have to go in front of anybody to get permission. All they would have to do is arrange the transportation and get whoever in South Sudan picks up the phone to say yes,” Pappert explained.
Noting how Abrego Garcia’s final deportation order issued by former U.S. Immigration Judge David M. Jones in 2019 granted “withholding of removal” relief prohibiting immigration authorities from deporting Abrego Garcia to either Guatemala or El Salvador, Pappert said the Supreme Court’s ruling essentially allows the 2019 order to be ignored.
“The U.S. Supreme Court had authorized the Trump administration to essentially avoid having to deal with this 2019 deportation order with the withholding of removal for one of two nations, and instead deport Abrego Garcia to a safe third country,” Pappert said.
Pappert highlighted how the efforts to prevent Abrego Garcia’s deportation may have unintentionally accelerated it, suggesting that the magistrate judge’s ruling Sunday may have been politically driven.
“This is a massive tactical error on behalf of the left…It’s a tremendous victory for the administration and it’s a huge vulnerability for Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” he said.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
