ETTD-Judicial Version

Vance’s favorite demagogic tactic, which he brings to every argument, is to reshape his opponent’s position in an absurdly extreme and preposterous way so he gets to argue with a fictitious person who doesn’t exist. It would take one phone call from Trump - everyone knows that. pic.twitter.com/iYIeHmv6et

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 15, 2025

They keep saying this (especially Vance); but oddly enough, never say it incourt.

Judge Xinis, the trial court judge:

Defendants did not assert—at any point prior to or during the April 4, 2025, hearing—that Abrego Garcia was an “enemy combatant,” an “alien enemy” under the Alien Enemies Act, 50 U.S.C. § 21, or removable based on MS13’s recent designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under 8 U.S.C. § 1189. Invoking such theories for the first time on appeal cannot cure the failure to present them before this Court. In any event, Defendants have offered no evidence linking Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or to any terrorist activity. And vague allegations of gang association alone do not supersede the express protections afforded under the INA, including 8 U.S.C. §§ 1231(b)(3)(A), 1229a, and 1229b.

This is where I remind you talk is cheap and allegations are free, but they don’t buy any relief in court without evidence to support them. As Judge Thacker, on the 4th Circuit bench, recognized:

Finally, I turn to the Government’s assertion that the public interest favors a stay because Abrego Garicia is a “prominent” member of MS-13 and is therefore “no longer eligible for withholding relief.” Mot. for Stay at 14–15. Whatever the merits of the 2019 determination of the Immigration Judge (“IJ”) regarding Abrego Garcia’s connection to MS-13,8 the Government presented “[n]o evidence” to the district court to “connect[] Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or any other criminal organization.” Dis.t Ct. Op. at 22 n.19; see also id. at 2 n.2 (“Invoking such theories for the first time on appeal cannot cure the failure to present them before this Court.”). Indeed, such a fact cannot be gleaned from this record, which shows that Abrego Garcia has no criminal history, in this country or anywhere else, and that Abrego Garcia is a gainfully employed family man who lives a law abiding and productive life. Tellingly, the Government “abandon[ed]” its position that Abrego Garcia was “a danger to the community” at the hearing before the district court. Dist. Ct. Op. at 22 n.19. The balance of equities must tip in the movant’s favor based on the record before the issuing court. An unsupported — and then abandoned — assertion that Abrego Garcia was a member of a gang, does not tip the scales in favor of removal in violation of this Administration’s own9 withholding order. If the Government wanted to prove to the district court that Abrego Garcia was a “prominent” member of MS-13, it has had ample opportunity to do so but has not — nor has it even bothered to try.

The Government’s argument that there is a public interest in removing members of “violent transnational gangs” from this country is no doubt true, but it does nothing to help the Government’s cause here. As noted, the Government has made no effort to demonstrate that Abrego Garcia is, in fact, a member of any gang, nor did the Government avail itself of the “procedural mechanism under governing regulations to reopen the immigration judge’s prior order[] and terminate its withholding protection.” Mot. for Stay at 16–17. The Government may not rely on its own failure to circumvent its own ruling that Abrego Garcia could not be removed to El Salvador.

8 Even then, the Government’s “evidence” of any connection between Abrego Garcia and MS-13 was thin, to say the least. The Government’s claim was based on (1) Abrego Garcia “wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie,” and (2) “a vague, uncorroborated allegation from a confidential informant claiming he belonged to MS-13’s ‘Western’ clique in New York—a place he has never lived.” S.A. 146 n.5; Mot. for Stay Add. at 10–11.

9 Of note, the IJ’s 2019 decision, which granted Abrego Garcia withholding of removal to El Salvador pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A) because he faced threats to his life from an El Salvadoran gang that had targeted him and his family, was during President Trump’s 2016–2020 term in office. That decision became final on November 9, 2019, and was not appealed by this Administration.

The two footnotes there are particularly noteworthy.

Trump & Co. are trying this case in the court of public opinion. The Lovely Wife has already mentioned the information in those footnotes that she saw in a news article. Trump desperately wants to ignore the courts and desperately wants to claim Garcia is a murderer-rapist-gangbanger (does anybody say that anymore? Somehow I imagine Trump doing it, still.). Mostly he’s doing this to keep his deportation theater going because, though he won’t admit it, Biden deported more people (lawfully and with the government bureaucracy Trump is attacking with an axe) in the same number of months than Trump has managed to do in his flailing cultural revolution.

ETTD, and it’s high time to stop him from touching anything else. Even people at a Grassley town hall agree:

One voter demanded, "We would like to know what you as the people, the Congress, who are supposed to rein in this dictator, what are you going to do about these people who have been sentenced to life imprisonment in a foreign country with no due process? Our government cannot do anything?"

A second voter asked a similar question: "I believe very strongly in my Christian faith. I preach on Sundays, and I believe very strongly in, 'we welcome the stranger.' I think turning away people who have come here for asylum is one of the most shameful things we are doing right now. "

And still another person interjected, "Are you going to bring that guy back?"

"That's not a power of Congress," Grassley answered, but the man insisted: "Supreme Court said to bring him back!"

"The president of that country is not subject to our U.S. Supreme Court," Grassley said of El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, as several people muttered in disgust.

The people of Iowa know chickenshit when they smell it.