Democratic strategist James Carville said Wednesday the party’s “top agenda” needs to be focused on retrieving deported El Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
“People say, ‘Well, should we really fight on this turf or should we fight more on ordinary people?’ This we should fight on. You can’t pivot to an economic issue. This is why we think we’re a country,” Carville said on his “Politics War Room” podcast.
A U.S. court granted Abrego Garcia temporary protected status in 2019, finding he faced a “clear probability of future persecution” if returned to his home country because “El Salvadoran authorities were and would be unable or unwilling to protect him.”
He was deported by the Trump administration in March to El Salvador’s sprawling, maximum-security prison. However, both a federal court and the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” his release and return to the U.S. for proper deportation proceedings.
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Though the Trump administration acknowledged that his deportation was an “administrative error,” it has since defended the decision and suggested El Salvador’s authorities should have the final say on Abrego Garcia’s status.
Carville alluded to the famous “First They Came for the Jews…” Holocaust poem and warned Democrats that they need to take a firm stance on this as soon as possible.
“There’s real wisdom in that and history has taught us that. First, they came for him, and then we’re going to say no right there. We got to keep fighting this. I think this is worthy of being at the top agenda of things that we’re going to fight over is get this guy back home,” Carville said.
Many Democrats have spoken out against Abrego Garcia’s deportation, making him a cause célèbre and describing the El Salvadoran national and accused MS-13 gang member in the U.S. illegally as a “Maryland father” who was “abducted.”
On Wednesday, Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador in an attempt to visit Abrego Garcia and negotiate his release with El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, but he was turned away.
Patty Murin, the mother of Rachel Morin, who was murdered by a different illegal immigrant from El Salvador, spoke at the White House press briefing Wednesday and called out Van Hollen’s support for illegal immigrants over her daughter.
“To have a senator from Maryland who didn’t even acknowledge – barely acknowledged my daughter and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother, and now a grandbaby without a grandmother, so that he can use my taxpayer money to fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that is not even an American citizen,” Morin said. “Why does that person have more right than I do for my daughter or my grandchildren? I don’t understand this.”
The Department of Homeland Security also released court records that it claims prove Abrego Garcia’s ties to the MS-13 gang. According to a Prince George’s County, Maryland, Police Department interview sheet shared with Fox News by DHS, local police discovered Abrego Garcia during a murder investigation. Police found him loitering in a Home Depot parking lot with other known MS-13 gang members in possession of illicit drugs in 2019.
Prince George’s County Gang Unit MS-13 Intelligence Squad conducted an interview with Abrego Garcia and contacted a “past proven and reliable source” who identified him as an active member of MS-13 with the “Westerns” clique, with the rank of “Chequeo” and the moniker of “Chele.”
A federal immigration court in Baltimore further determined Abrego Garcia was not eligible for release because he “failed to meet his burden of demonstrating that his release from custody would not pose a danger to others, as the evidence shows that he is a verified member of MS-13.”
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt spoke about the documents and lambasted the Democratic Party for their “lies” about Abrego Garcia and how they keep referring to him as a “Maryland father.”
“There is no Maryland father. Let me reiterate. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an illegal alien, MS-13 gang member and foreign terrorist who was deported back to his home country. And when Kilmar Abrego Garcia was originally arrested, he was wearing a sweatshirt with rolls of money covering the ears, mouth and eyes of presidents on various currency denominations,” Leavitt said on Wednesday. “This is a known MS-13 gang symbol of hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.”
She continued, “Abrego Garcia was also arrested with two other well-known members of the vicious MS-13 gang. Two separate judges found that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13. That finding has never been disputed.”
Leavitt also produced Maryland court documents released that morning that showed Abrego Garcia’s wife had petitioned an order of protection against him for two counts of domestic violence in 2021, alleging that he punched, scratched, grabbed and bruised her.
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Abrego Garcia’s attorneys maintain he was living in the U.S. legally and does not have any gang ties.
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