Police informant key to US ‘gang member' deportation

The Donald Trump administration’s insistence that a Maryland resident deported to El Salvador by mistake is a member of the criminal gang MS-13 can be traced back to a single unnamed police informant, a review of court documents reveals.

- JOE SOMMERLAD

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, is a construction worker and father of three with no criminal record who was arrested and sent to a notorious mega-prison on 15 March – a decision a Justice Department lawyer subsequently conceded was the result of an “administrative error”.

But rather than comply with a federal court order that it “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, the administration has dug in its heels, ignoring the campaign for the detainee’s release being led by his wife and instead preferring to make accusations about his background.

Abrego Garcia has admitted that he first entered the US illegally in 2012 but denies having any association with MS-13. The only basis for thinking otherwise comes from a Prince George’s County Police report into his arrest, along with three other men, for “loitering” in the car park of a branch of Home Depot in Hyattsville, Maryland, in March 2019.

Abrego Garcia protested that he was simply looking for work and was not ultimately charged with a crime. However, the arresting officer completed a “gang field interview sheet” in which he noted that Abrego Garcia was “wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with decorations of rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents on the separate denominations”.

“Officers know such clothing to be indicative of the Hispanic gang culture,” the filing said, suggesting that the graphics on the hoodie were a covert reference to MS-13’s “see no evil, hear no evil and say no evil” motto.