6 ms·
An 'administrative error' sent a Maryland man to an El Salvador prison
- duxup 2y ago> The evidence they cited included his wearing of a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie and a confidential informant’s claim that Abrego Garcia belonged to MS-13’s “Westerns clique” in Long Island, New York, despite having never lived there. Some pretty flimsy evidence… And all this time this guy was what? Working and being productive like anyone else…
- pavlov 2y agoEliminate due process and you don't need evidence. Vibes-based justice is back. AI-driven deportations next?
- artificialiwhat 2y agoYou joke but https://www.axios.com/2025/03/06/state-department-ai-revoke-foreign-student-visas-hamas# https://www.axios.com/2025/03/06/state-department-ai-revoke-...
- renewiltord 2y ago[flagged]
- darioush 2y agojust an example of bureaucracy at work. this what happens when you centralize all decision making to people who have no local knowledge of the community they are administrating, and predicate their jobs on following a checklist, usually as implemented by buggy software, instead of making a judgement call based on experience and circumstances.
- yapyap 2y agoIf you go by the Marriam Websters definition of fascism this is getting pretty close. > Fascism : a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition
- Tadpole9181 2y agoAs if this has anything to do with locality? Rulers of parcels of land small enough you could see it all from a single hill have been utter despots before. Heck, just look at how some parents treat their children. This is what happens when you elect a convicted felon, rapist, bullying loser compromised by the Russian state who outright says he wants to be a dictator and he puts sycophants and bullies into positions of power to do exactly that. Saying this is about local vs nonlocal governance is nothing more than shirking the responsibility of 70,000,000 Americans who wanted this and 100,000,000 Americans who couldn't be bothered to stop it.
- ckemere 2y agoI do think that there’s an aspect of small government that connects those 70M to their government in a way that large scale federalization may fail to do. Not sure how to achieve benefits of scale without this problem…
- nness 2y agoReminds me of all the Guantanamo Bay detainees that were suspected and held for just wearing a Casio F-91W digital watch...
- rayiner 2y ago“Working and being productive” is not a sufficient basis for being allowed to remain in the U.S.
- duxup 2y agoHow about being a legal resident? Either way I think it speaks to the effectiveness / end result of policy where you take someone working and being productive, paying taxes … and then expend government resources to prevent that (and apparently do a poor job at that even).
- rayiner 2y agoHe’s undisputedly in the country illegally, and both an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration appeals ordered his deportation for suspected gang ties: https://www.wmar2news.com/infocus/family-of-alleged-gang-member-deported-to-el-salvador-prison-sues-to-have-him-returned-to-baltimore https://www.wmar2news.com/infocus/family-of-alleged-gang-mem... (“Other court documents show an immigration judge ordered Abrego-Garcia to be removed from the U.S. back in April 2019 over his alleged gang ties.”)
- technothrasher 2y agoDid you miss the part where the same judge that authorized his deportation, also specified it to be somewhere other than El Salvador? It's right in the same article you quoted. That is central to the ICE screw up. It's not that they deported him, but that they ignored the court's ruling to not deport him to El Salvador, because they're ignoring due process and rushing things for political points.
- ty6853 2y agoWas that a real judge in the judicial branch or one of those 'judges' in the executive branch kangaroo courts?
- nicpottier 2y agoAlso the administration claims to be "powerless" to free him now. Does anybody believe this? Terrifying. This isn't the only case, how many others are out there? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/its-a-tradition-outrage-in-venezuela-as-us-deports-makeup-artist-for-religious-tattoos https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/its-a-tradit...
- milesrout 2y agoOnce you have deported someone it makes sense that they would no longer be under your jurisdiction. Purely logically: they're no longer within it.
- nicpottier 2y agoExcept the administration is paying for these people to be in the El Salvadoran prison. Also, since when is the administration that uses threats of giant tariffs to accomplish its goals powerless to right these wrongs?
- timcobb 2y agoRight, but if you've been following the situation since the current administration took office, you would know that if they want something, they're not shy to ask.
- amarcheschi 2y agoNor it is reasonable to not have processes to get back someone if they're wrongfully deported. Moving fast and breaking things is not acceptable when you're dealing with people's lifes - and i somehow think if a rich white man were to be deported by mistake, he would be brought back quite fast
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- UncleMeat 2y agoIn my opinion, this should be an 8th amendment violation. "We threw you in a pit forever but its not our pit so your legal protections are void" is not good. This isn't just flying somebody to their country of origin and leaving them there. This is flying somebody to an unrelated country and the paying a foreign nation to throw them in an overcrowded prison with no oversight for the rest of their lives.
- croes 2y agoPrevious flagged discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43544534 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43544534 210 points, 146 comments
- mystraline 2y ago[Meta] I think this shows the worst part of HN. You can have thoughtful and interesting discussions 100+ comments and wider. But when a few people are triggered, they feel that they want to ruin the discussion for everybody else. Whereas they could have closed the tab, and move on. No clue how to solve it at a wider scale. For me? I just don't engage in topics I don't care about. No need to force my views on others. Update: it took 5 minutes for this article to also be flagged. Sigh.
- airstrike 2y agoIt's got nothing to do with being triggered and everything to do with this website trying to not also become completely flooded with political discussions > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- infecto 2y agoThis is the way imo. I flagged this story, I believe in due process, I don’t agree with the administration but I also don’t want HN to become yet another tribal battleground and these posts only fuel those comments.
- chabes 2y agoHN has a lot of immigrants that work in the US. What is happening right now is relevant to many users of this site. Maybe think about this before knee-jerk flagging
- reversescenario 2y ago[flagged]
- timcobb 2y agoHow does this relate to this specific case and this specific individual?
- sneak 2y agoICE arrests US citizens all the time, some are held for years without trial. The following article is from 2018. It’s even worse now. They are out of control. https://www.latimes.com/archives/story/2018-04-27/ice-held-an-american-man-in-custody-for-1273-days https://www.latimes.com/archives/story/2018-04-27/ice-held-a... > Davino Watson, a U.S. citizen, was wrongfully held in immigration detention centers for more than three years while he sought to prove his citizenship. The cruelty and capriciousness is the point. Abolish ICE.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rayiner 2y agoAn immigration judge ordered him deported in 2019 because of suspected gang ties, after an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals: https://www.wmar2news.com/infocus/family-of-alleged-gang-member-deported-to-el-salvador-prison-sues-to-have-him-returned-to-baltimore https://www.wmar2news.com/infocus/family-of-alleged-gang-mem... (“Other court documents show an immigration judge ordered Abrego-Garcia to be removed from the U.S. back in April 2019 over his alleged gang ties.”).
- ceejayoz 2y ago> Despite affirming Abrego-Garcia's link to MS-13, and authorizing his deportation, an immigration judge determined he should be removed somewhere other than El Salvador due to potential safety concerns.
- ty6853 2y agoWho on earth would take someone suspected to be a gang member, other than his home country where he has the right to return? What makes more sense it to deport him (not that I agree with deportation here) to El Salvador and have the authorities escort him to some bumfuck area of the country where no one would know him.
- ceejayoz 2y ago"But it would be hard!" is not a valid reason to ignore a judge's order.
- ty6853 2y agoImmigration judges aren't judges in the conventional sense (like the ones in the judicial branch), so they don't have the legal power you're thinking of. They are members of the executive branch and judges basically only in title. They are actually just shills ('delegates') for the AG, who as far as I can tell can override them by fiat. [ Not legal advice ] https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/8/1003.10 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/8/1003.10
- marcusverus 2y agoThis is intentionally deceptive messaging, as per usual. This "Maryland man" was an illegal immigrant who had been previously found by a judge to've been a member of MS-13.
- kyrra 2y agoSince AP decided to not actually even say this in their article: "Abrego Garcia was deemed by an immigration judge in 2019 to be a likely member of the MS-13 gang — a decision Abrego Garcia sharply contested and that the government credited to information gleaned from a confidential informant. But the court also agreed at the time that he should not be deported to El Salvador, finding that his fear of being persecuted was credible." https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/01/salvador-man-maryland-deported-mistake-00262870 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/01/salvador-man-maryla... Court filing: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.11.1_1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578...
- rayiner 2y agoAnd the decision was upheld by the Board of Immigration Appeals: https://www.wmar2news.com/infocus/family-of-alleged-gang-member-deported-to-el-salvador-prison-sues-to-have-him-returned-to-baltimore https://www.wmar2news.com/infocus/family-of-alleged-gang-mem...
- OGWhales 2y agoSome more up-to-date information which adds important context can be found here: https://clearinghouse-umich-production.s3.amazonaws.com/media/doc/157555.pdf https://clearinghouse-umich-production.s3.amazonaws.com/medi... Relevant sections include: > In support thereof, ICE offered a Gang Field Interview Sheet (“GFIS”) generated by PGPD. The GFIS explained that the only reason to believe Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was a gang member was that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie; and that a confidential informant advised that he was an active member of MS-13 with the Westerns clique. > According to the Department of Justice and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, the “Westerns” clique operates in Brentwood, Long Island, in New York, a state that Plaintiff Abrego Garcia has never lived in. > The attorney for Plaintiff Abrego Garcia subsequently made multiple attempts to obtain additional information from law enforcement concerning these allegations. PGPD indicated that it did not have any incident report related to the Home Deport episode at all, nor did the Department have any incident reports containing his name. The Hyattsville City Police Department (“HCPD”), on the other hand, confirmed it had an incident report for the Home Depot incident, but that only 3 people were named and Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was not one of them, nor did it have any other incident reports with his name in its database. His attorney also contacted the PGPD Inspector General requesting to speak to the detective who authored the GFIS sheet, but was informed that the detective had been suspended. A request to speak to other officers in the Gang Unit was declined. > On August 9, 2019, the attorney for ICE indicated on the record that ICE had conferred with its law enforcement partners and that all the evidence and intelligence they had was what was contained in the GFIS.
- tomrod 2y agoWish there was a "vouch" option for when things that the US political right feels is an attack, despite it just being facts and worthy of discussion in an economic sector that is heavily connected with immigration, is flagged.
- Tadpole9181 2y agoThere is, but... 1. It requires flagging first. And that immediately kills posts ability to naturally grow. They're now invisible, so getting karma to get visibility is way harder. Even if they're unflagged, they're inherently disadvantaged and the original flagger still gets their way. 2. It's not accounted for in deduplication. So if a post is unflagged and it loses all momentum, nobody can repost it or it gets flagged for duplication! 3. Only some people can vouch, and they usually don't even know it exists. 4. And even if you can vouch, you need to go looking for flagged posts to find the post to vouch for. Maybe some people should lose their flagging privileges when they're clearly abusing it? But I have a sneaking suspicion that won't happen.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y agoMost of what you said is correct but, in this case, the post cannot be vouched anymore. Only [dead] posts can be vouched and this was (presumably) vouched enough when it became [flagged][dead] to have those tags removed until it was flagged more to be [flagged] again. Because it's not also [dead], it cannot be vouched anymore. I've seen that pattern progress a couple of times and it lines up with the posts I am actually able to vouch. Rarely, there are comments that are [flagged] but not [dead], which similarly cannot be vouched.
- infecto 2y agoIt could be what you say, “political right feeling attacked” or folks like me that that have seen this post before and other like it and think there is not much more value beating the horse some more.
- tomrod 2y ago
- waltercool 2y ago[dead]