Talk:Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia: Difference between revisions

Name

The sources out there all seem to use different variations of his name making WP:COMMONNAME tricky. Any suggestions on what to name this article are welcome. Hobit (talk) 15:50, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

The motions filed by his attorneys say "Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia" (with an n in his middle name), but the news articles that I've seen in Spanish spell his last name as Ábrego García. I'm still inclined to use the English spelling of his last name, as I think that's the spelling that is used by more news sources. I'm also inclined to omit his middle name. I actually think that the article should be renamed something like "Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia," as it's the manner of his deportation and the resulting lawsuit that make this notable. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:14, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Like Detention of Mahmoud Khalil. Bremps... 19:47, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it does make more sense as an event article and support the move. It will, of course, require a bit of a rewrite of the lede. Hobit (talk) 22:51, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

I checked further re: names with accents, and both WP:UE and WP:ENGLISH say that we should use the spelling in English. I've left a note for an experienced editor who works a lot with foreign languages, double-checking how the name should be treated in the body of the article. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:05, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Well, I went ahead and moved it, and only afterwards realized that I hadn't corrected the spelling of his first name. So we'll need to move it again. Sorry about that. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:44, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Move makes sense to me. Remember (talk) 01:00, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Suggest renaming something like Removal and Imprisonment, rather than Deportation, and also changing the language throughout to avoid calling this a deportation. Deportation is a misnomer in this case, given that a) Garcia was sent to a third country rather than his country of origin, b) he was imprisoned there despite lacking a criminal conviction, and c) the process did not follow a legal process generally used to deport those without legal status. 2601:19B:4101:6B90:0:0:0:71EE (talk) 01:51, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Garcia was not sent to a third country, he is Salvadoran. Mason7512 (talk) 12:45, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Btw, this is precisely the elementary problem this article should clarify: What is or are his surnames, legally speaking in the US and/or El Salvador? Ábrego is a surname, not a first name in the main, thus making García his mother's surname. However, in the US it's possible this fundamental biographical and legal information remains unclarified or confused. LudovicMarsiliani (talk) 15:18, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

His US lawyers use the name Kilmar Armando Abrego Garia. English RSs refer to his last name as Abrego Garcia, so that is what we use for en.wiki. Some Spanish sources use Abrego García, and some use Ábrego García. FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:41, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I just added a note at the beginning noting the variations of his name being reported. Mason7512 (talk) 00:26, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Conclusion of immigration judges re: MS-13 membership

@Kizor, re: your 16:29 edit summary ("IANAL, don't think it's accurate to say the judge at the bond hearing "concluded that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13." That's not what bond hearings do. They're for arrangements for waiting for an actual trial. ...") and removal of article text, the PolitiFact article says

Abrego-Garcia was taken into ICE custody, where judges denied bond, both initially and on appeal... judge Elizabeth Kessler denied Abrego-Garcia’s initial bond request, writing that "the determination that (Abrego-Garcia) is a gang member appears to be trustworthy and is supported by other evidence in the record, namely, information contained in the Gang Field Interview Sheet,"... When Kessler’s ruling was appealed, it was upheld. ... the judge "appropriately considered allegations of gang affiliation" against Abrego-Garcia.

There are links in the article to relevant court documents if you want to read them. We cannot use those court documents for content about Abrego Garcia, per WP:BLPPRIMARY, but we can include info based on PolitiFact's statements/quotes. I don't assume that the judges' assessments of gang membership are accurate, but it's a fact that they came to that conclusion, and it's relevant/due in our article. FactOrOpinion (talk) 16:47, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Yeah the unfortunate thing is we need another article to cite to if we want to go into the standards for determining issues in this bond hearing. I think if we could find that, then we could add more context. Remember (talk) 17:18, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think we need to go into the standard for determining issues at a bond hearing. I do think that we need to acknowledge that some immigration judges determined that there was sufficient evidence of him being a gang member, and I think that the PolitiFact article is enough for that. If you think that PolitiFact isn't sufficient for that, would you say why? (Is the issue of it being a bond hearing key, in the sense that perhaps the initial judge was only concluding that the likelihood of gang membership and flight risk were sufficient not to grant a bond?)

We should probably make clearer that after the 2019 hearing where the first judge assessed that he was likely a gang member, the government started deportation proceedings (also in 2019), at which point a different judge granted the withholding of removal order. My impression is that at some point after the withholding of removal order, the government simply walked away from their attempt to deport him. I don't know why the government didn't attempt to deport him to a third country at that point, nor when/why he was eventually released from jail (given that he wasn't granted legal status, only the withholding of removal protection from being sent back to El Salvador, and the initial judge said that he was ineligible for a bond). I haven't seen any reporting on these other issues (start of deportation proceedings, decision to end those proceedings rather than deport to a third country, release from jail), though perhaps it exists. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:19, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

> some immigration judges determined that there was sufficient evidence of him being a gang member

I'm not a lawyer, but I believe the legal standard in this type of case doesn't imply guilt just that there's enough evidence of possible guilt to support a trial:

e.g. There was not a sufficient lack of evidence to rule him out from being a gang member.

So I think whatever we put into the article should be very careful of accurately quoting the sources not paraphrasing them. Bob drobbs (talk) 19:53, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't know that it even has to be sufficient evidence to go to trial, only sufficient to refuse to grant a bond. If you want a quote, PolitiFact quotes a relevant excerpt from the first judge.

Kizor, perhaps I didn't read carefully enough initially. I think the current text is OK. I just want to make sure that we address this info per WP:NPOV. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:35, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

CBS news reports that it was determined he was not a gang member. Emphasis mine: In 2019, he was arrested at a Home Depot in Hyattsville. Authorities alleged, based on an informant, that he was a member of MS-13. A judge later determined he was not a gang member and prohibited the U.S. from deporting him—saying he could be targeted by gangs if sent back to El Salvador.

NBC News reported on the district court judge's interpretation of the claims of gang membership, which seem relevant:

On Friday, Xinis chalked up the government's claims that Garcia was a gang member to "just chatter."

“In a court of law when someone is accused of membership in such a violent and predatory organization, it comes in form of indictment or criminal proceeding so we can assess facts,” Xinis said. “I haven't seen any of those.”

Iknowyoureadog (talk) 22:37, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

CBS news can claim that "A judge later determined he was not a gang member and prohibited the U.S. from deporting him," but I don't see that anywhere in Judge Jones' ruling (Jones is the judge who granted the withholding of removal). That CBS is GREL does not imply that it is reliable for this specific bit of information. If I somehow missed it in Jones' ruling, please let me know. Also, the Board of Immigration Appeals ruling came after Jones' ruling. I already said a bit about the second half of your comment below. Immigration courts are Article I courts and district courts are Article III courts (see Federal tribunals in the United States, I had to learn this in making sense of the proceedings against Mahmoud Khalil). Immigration courts don't have to present indictments in order to conclude that someone is a gang member, and he wasn't alleged to have committed any criminal acts, so there was no criminal proceeding. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:27, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

That CBS is GREL does not imply that it is reliable for this specific bit of information. Why would Politifact be reliable in this area, but not CBS?

Further, that politifact quotes David W. Leopold, "an immigration attorney and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association who is not a party to Abrego-Garcia’s case" in the following way (emphasis mine) is material to verifiability, and seems to undercut the notion that we can conclude anything about Abrego Garcia's membership in a gang from the bond hearings:

Abrego-Garcia "was denied bond because of allegations of gang membership, not because he was convicted of a crime," Leopold said. Indications of gang membership, "even if baseless, are often used to make critical decisions about a noncitizen’s custody status," he said. Iknowyoureadog (talk) 00:01, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Every source is an RS for some things and not others. That a source is GREL does not imply that everything that appears in its pages (website, etc.) is accurate. If we know that X is false, but a source presents X as true, then the source is not an RS for X. There was a long recent discussion about this at WP:RSN in the context of the Muller report and false claims that it said there was "no collusion."

We may not always know what's true, and we shouldn't insert something we believe (or even know) is true if there is no RS for it, but we also shouldn't add something we know to be false. Do you see anywhere in Jones' ruling where he says anything at all about MS-13? (This is a sincere question. Maybe it's there and I missed it.) I'm not saying that we conclude things about Abrego Garcia's actual membership in a gang from the bond hearings. I'm saying that if enough sources are accurately reporting Judge Kessler's ruling, we should include that info because it's DUE. We can also include other info that's DUE and disagrees with her ruling, such as Judge Xinis's ruling, which is already in the article. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:37, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I understand the concept, no need to have explained it. I'm asking specifically in this instance why you suggest CBS might not be reliable in this case, whereas politifact (by implication) is reliable.

Neither cited the ruling so I'm not sure why you keep asking. Feel free to explain. Iknowyoureadog (talk) 00:57, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm totally open to the possibility that Politifact got something wrong. (In fact, they hyphenated Abrego Garcia, which as best I can tell is wrong.) If you think they got anything else wrong, just let me know.

I'm suggesting that CBS got something wrong for part of the quote you gave: "A judge later determined he was not a gang member and prohibited the U.S. from deporting him—saying he could be targeted by gangs if sent back to El Salvador." The reason I'm questioning it is because the judge who approved the withholding of removal is Judge Jones, and Jones' ruling is a public record. I'd already looked at it for other reasons, and I didn't see anything in Jones' ruling about MS-13, the gang that Judge Kessler made a ruling about, which is also the gang that the Trump admin. focuses on in this case. Jones did discuss Barrio 18, another gang that's active in El Salvador and was targeting Abrego Garcia's family. I suspect that whoever wrote the CBS text confused these two gangs. But it's possible that I missed something in Jones' ruling, so I'm asking you whether you saw anything in his ruling about MS-13. CBS is definitely wrong that Jones "prohibited the U.S. from deporting him." Jones only prohibited the US from deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, but his order didn't prohibit the US from deporting him to a third country.

"Neither cited the ruling so I'm not sure why you keep asking." Both referred to it, though neither named Jones, and PolitiFact linked to it (and also to Kessler's ruling and the BIA ruling). I'm asking because CBS referred to it, and I think CBS's claim about it is wrong. FactOrOpinion (talk) 01:29, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

We have one source (politifact) that says a judge found the allegation of gang membership to be credible enough to deny bond, and that interviews an expert who says that even baseless accusations are used to deny bond.

We have another source (CBS) that says a judge determined he's not a gang member. For some reason (that you have not succinctly explained) you declare CBS not to be a reliable source in this arena.

And we have numerous sources (e.g. NBC) that report on Judge Xinis's comments on the matter, stating effectively, that if Abgrego Garcia were a gang member, he would have been charged with a crime.

I don't see how we could possibly include Abrego Garcia's membership in a gang as a fact; it's at minimum disputed.

Politifact:

• In 2019, Baltimore-based immigration judge Elizabeth Kessler denied Abrego-Garcia’s initial bond request, writing that "the determination that (Abrego-Garcia) is a gang member appears to be trustworthy and is supported by other evidence in the record, namely, information contained in the Gang Field Interview Sheet," referring to the testimony of the people with Abrego-Garcia at the Home Depot. Kessler cast doubt on law enforcement’s reliance on "clothing as an indication of gang affiliation," but she found "the fact that a ‘past, proven, and reliable source of information’ verified the Respondent’s gang membership."
• At appeal "We adopt and affirm the Immigration Judge’s danger ruling," the decision says. The decision rejected challenges to the reliability of the statement provided by the informant at the Home Depot, saying the judge "appropriately considered allegations of gang affiliation" against Abrego-Garcia
• Abrego-Garcia "was denied bond because of allegations of gang membership, not because he was convicted of a crime," Leopold said. Indications of gang membership, "even if baseless, are often used to make critical decisions about a noncitizen’s custody status," he said.

CBS:

• In 2019, he was arrested at a Home Depot in Hyattsville. Authorities alleged, based on an informant, that he was a member of MS-13. A judge later determined he was not a gang member and prohibited the U.S. from deporting him—saying he could be targeted by gangs if sent back to El Salvador.

e.g. NBC:

• On Friday, Xinis chalked up the government's claims that Garcia was a gang member to "just chatter." “In a court of law when someone is accused of membership in such a violent and predatory organization, it comes in form of indictment or criminal proceeding so we can assess facts,” Xinis said. “I haven't seen any of those.”

Iknowyoureadog (talk) 02:11, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

"For some reason (that you have not succinctly explained) you declare CBS not to be a reliable source in this arena."

That's an significant overgeneralization of what I actually said, which is only that as best I can tell, part of one sentence in the CBS article—"[Judge Jones] later determined he was not a gang member and prohibited the U.S. from deporting him"—is false, and it is inappropriate for us to add information to the article that we know to be false.

That's not a declaration that CBS is not a reliable source "in this arena." The arena is quite large. It's only a declaration that they got some specific content wrong. Politifact also got some specific content wrong: they misspelled his name. News media make mistakes, even when they're GREL.

If you think I missed something in Jones' ruling, and that Jones did determine that Abrego Garcia "was not a gang member" (specifically, a member of MS-13), just quote the text from Jones' ruling. I'll gladly change my mind in light of valid evidence. I've asked you this three times now, and you've ignored it every single time.

Can you at least agree that CBS is wrong that "[Judge Jones] prohibited the U.S. from deporting him"? Jones didn't prohibit deportation in general, he only prohibited deportation to El Salvador.

"I don't see how we could possibly include Abrego Garcia's membership in a gang as a fact; it's at minimum disputed."

I agree. I never suggested including it as a fact. It's not a fact. But it is a fact that Judge Kessler said that there was sufficient evidence of gang membership to deny bond, and I think the fact that she said that is DUE in the article along with the information that's already there about Xinis disagreeing and Abrego Garcia's own disavowal of it. I think that WP:NPOV requires us to include all of that. FactOrOpinion (talk) 03:00, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Is the judge in a bond hearing a trier of fact about gang membership? Honest question. To my feeble understanding, bond hearings don't seek to make a judgment on whether something did or didn't happen, but are solely concerned with the practical matter of whether someone should be released on bond. Like you said while I was dragging my feet with writing this reply, the first judge was only determining that the likelihood of gang membership and flight risk were sufficient not to grant a bond. That's why I cited WashPost to state in so many words what the judge had determined, and instead used PolitiFact for why. --Kizor 20:12, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Actually, here's another potential solution. How does this fit under WP:DUE?

If multiple RS covered this, then maybe we can look at them collectively and decide how to best phrase this.

But if politifact is the only source which covered this particular aspect of the case, then maybe it isn't significant enough to go into an IMO a pretty important article. Bob drobbs (talk) 21:05, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

This WSJ article (non-paywalled copy here) might be useful re: the low standard of evidence for the immigration court. I'm sure that there are other RSs discussing the 2019 ruling about MS-13, the only challenge would be finding them amidst all of the other reporting. But here's an example, "A judge agreed in 2019 that information supplied to police by an informant was persuasive enough to label him a likely member of the [MS-13] gang and justify his continued detention as a danger to the community." FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:39, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

The district court judge made a comment that addresses this, if not directly, in a way that supersedes it. See here. Iknowyoureadog (talk) 22:52, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Legally, I don't know that Xinis's finding supersedes the Board of Immigration Appeals' ruling, since Abrego Garcia v. Noem wasn't an appeal of the BIA ruling. Xinis's finding certainly doesn't supersede the fact that the immigration judge concluded what she concluded, and if it's DUE, we should mention it, per NPOV. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:11, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

My point was that Xinis's statement supersedes the question as to whether or not judge in a bond hearing a trier of fact about gang membership, not if it legally supersedes the bond hearing or appeal. Iknowyoureadog (talk) 23:29, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME

@Yilku1, I see that you just moved Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García. The former is his WP:COMMONNAME, so I'm curious why you moved it. Are you also planning to change all of the instances of Abrego Garcia in the article to Ábrego García? FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:02, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

It's a Spanish name so I added the accents. Or then what? Should we remove all the accents of all Spanish names?

"Are you also planning to change all of the instances of Abrego Garcia in the article to Ábrego García"

I did that before moving it. Yilku1 (talk) 23:48, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

"Should we remove all the accents of all Spanish names?"

No, since some common names include accents. But many other common names don't, despite the fact that the name has accents in Spanish (or other diacritics for names from other languages), and this is one of the ones that doesn't (it's hard to find any English sources that include the accents in his name). Do you believe that WP:COMMONNAME is no longer consensus for names with accents and that all relevant pages should be moved? FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:15, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I now see that reporting in Spanish sometimes uses Ábrego and sometimes uses Abrego. Do you know which is correct? FactOrOpinion (talk) 12:57, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

@Yilku1 Good move. I'd support having it reinstated under the correct graphy. Bedivere (talk) 17:01, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

There's a relevant discussion at WT:Article titles § Is WP:COMMONNAME still consensus for people's names that have diacritics. I don't think it makes sense to have one rule for Spanish names and a different rule for names in other languages that use Latin alphabets. Also, we'd need to determine which of Ábrego vs. Abrego is correct. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:14, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Confusing mention of special needs child

There is a sentence in the Deportation section that reads:

His son, who was five years old at the time, has "autism and a hearing defect, and is unable to communicate verbally."

Earlier, the article says all of his kids have special needs. My question is about the point of mentioning this. I could understand the earlier instance, but the above sentence sounds like it's preparing for something that doesn't appear later in the article.

If the sentence is kept, I'd think there should be mentions of it later in the article, like how the deportation makes it harder on the mother and such. Otherwise, it just distracts from the point. Any thoughts? SaavayuAdrin (talk) 23:44, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I added it and I mainly added it to give a sense of the scene when he was picked up by ICE. I thought understanding the nature of his special needs 5-year-old gave context for that factual occurrence. But happy to have it removed or moved if people get otherwise. Remember (talk) 01:37, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

We could certainly add a bit more information further down (in Reactions?), for ex., his wife has said how hard it has been for the entire family, but especially for the youngest (I don't have a citation handy though). FactOrOpinion (talk) 02:02, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I vote in favor of more information, can't find much about this anywhere else as it isbeing blockaded. Whether we like it or not these are now public figures. Being part of any legal action at SCOTUS Level pretty much loses the luxury of privacy. He has a grandmother living in USA, that is now relevant and her name age & how & when she got here & so on for all family members who have to do with him. Is he step father to disabled children, well all of their details & information about their "baby daddy" may be relevant. In any SCOTUS action we will apeciate a "broad transcript" much more than trying to preserve privacy for the sake of modesty. When you embargo this stuff it can lead to more trouble. However this is the opinion of an Historian, without a law degree.

John5Russell3Finley (talk) 19:21, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Frequent mentions of his disabled sons are not relevant and are blatant rhetorical appeals

There is little reason to include multiple mentions of his disabled sons. Once is enough. This information literally has zero to do with his deportation or status as a legal/illegal citizen, the court proceedings, the ongoing situation, etc. -- otherwise its just a pretty clear tactic to engage sympathy from the reader, violating a commitment to principled impartiality. I suggest the article be edited to reflect that commitment. The article is "The Deportation of Kilmar," not "The Deportation of Kilmar and How That Made His Family Really Really Sad and His Sons Have Autism How Dare You?" 97.180.64.245 (talk) 18:41, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

You say "multiple," but I only see two mentions (did I miss some?): one that refers to all three children (in the background section, where it is as relevant as other information in the background section), and a second about his 5 y.o. son, who was there when he was taken from the car and who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit suit. Although the article doesn't mention it, the suit states that when ICE arrested Abrego Garcia, the "ICE officers threatened that the child would be handed over to Child Protective Services" if his mother didn't come within 10 minutes to pick him up, and we should likely see whether there's an RS that notes this. Nothing is stopping you from improving the article by editing this text, but I disagree that there's little reason to make these two mentions: it's relevant to the impact on his son who was there and could not say anything, and to the impact on his wife (who is also a plaintiff in the suit), in that it makes it more challenging for her to be parenting them by herself. If anything, it suggests that we should add something about the latter to the article, perhaps in the Reactions section. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:54, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Added the info about child protective services. Remember (talk) 21:23, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

There are guidelines in WP:1E which discuss situations where someone is only notable for one event. The 'rules' are subjective, but this seems like a pretty clear case where it makes sense to have his bio, including some info about his family, included as part of the article about the incident. All of which have been covered in RS. Bob drobbs (talk) 21:37, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Supreme Court brief quotes in intro

I am about to remove these quotes from a Supreme Court brief in the intro:

The supreme court stated, " For good reason: the Constitution charges the President, not federal district courts, with the conduct of foreign diplomacy and protecting the Nation against foreign terrorists, including by effectuating their removal." "Respondents emphasize that Abrego Garcia was improperly removed to El Salvador because, although he could be removed anywhere else in the world under a 2019 order of removal, that order granted statutory withholding of removal to El Salvador alone. But, while the United States concedes that removal to El Salvador was an administrative error, see App., infra, 60a, that does not license district courts to seize control over foreign relations, treat the Executive Branch as a subordinate diplomat, and demand that the United States let a member of a foreign terrorist organization into America tonight." Despite having a wife and five-year-old child who are both American citizens. The Supreme Court argued that this error cannot be rectified by American courts since they have no jurisdiction over Abrego Garcia in El Salvador.

Reading the docket, it looks like the Supreme Court did not actually say this -- an attorney for the government said this in a brief, instead. This quote as attributed is misleading and beyond that doesn't really make sense at the top of the page.

Sorry in advance for any formatting mistakes here, it's been a while since I've edited. Tris Wilson (talk) 19:24, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree and change the intro back to an earlier version.Remember (talk) 19:33, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

FYI - It looks like a new editor put this text back into the article without seeing your comment giving a reason and saying "see talk". I left a note on their talk page that they should check here. Bob drobbs (talk) 19:35, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

SCOTUS infobox

I added the SCOTUS info box but it still needs to be completed. I’m getting distracted wi th things in real life so if someone could help complete it, I would greatly appreciate it. Remember (talk)| Remember (talk) 19:52, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I'll add a bit more info, but when I looked at the SCOTUS order, it made me uncertain. It's an unsigned order, but isn't identified as per curiam order, either at the top of the order or in this list of opinions, and the response from Sotomayor (joined by Kagan and Jackson) is only identified as a "statement," not a concurrence. (Contrast with this SCOTUS order in the Alien Enemies Act case, also an emergency docket appeal.) FWIW, we don't know that it was written by Roberts, and we don't know that it was unanimous, only that there were no public dissents. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:10, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Turns out that I was too slow, and as I was pondering the difference between the two orders, someone else added more info. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:18, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I had similar concerns but did not want to violate WP:OR, so I just went off what I could find in a RS: that it was per curium according to this Reason article by a con law professor and I used the concurrence parameter because it was the closest equivalent. (here are the sources I could find that describe Sotomayor's statement as something specifically (not just a statement): The National Law Review "concurrence" Vox "opinion") Mason7512 (talk) 21:29, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I think that's fine. I'm not a lawyer, so sometimes I don't know whether some variation is legally significant or not. Bottom line: if the Trump admin wanted to bring Abrego Garcia back, they would have attempted to do so as soon as they realized their mistake. The question now is whether the courts can force this or if he will remain in prison there no matter the government's error and court rulings. FactOrOpinion (talk) 22:07, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Rare 9-0 rulings?

I reverted a change to the lead claiming this. I couldn't find any sources to support it, and quite to the contrary I found sources explicitly contradicting it:

"Fact-check: Are 9-0 Supreme Court rulings rare?" [1] Bob drobbs (talk) 21:00, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree, feels like editorializing JRBuch12 (talk) 21:15, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

No, they're not rare. For ex., in 2021, SCOTUSblog said that "Only 29% of cases were decided unanimously, the lowest rate of unanimity in the two decades that we have been tracking the statistic." In many years, unanimous rulings are more common than any other specific split. Also, we don't actually know that this ruling was unanimous (though many GREL sources said it was unanimous). All we know is that a majority supported the order that was released. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:16, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Repeated distruptive edits to lead

This needs to be brought to the talk page. @Currenteventful, you have attempted to replace the first paragraph of the lead with text mainly consisting of quotes at least 3-4 times. It has been reverted repeatedly because multiple users believe it does not comply with multiple Wikipedia guidelines and policies. If you want to include this content, discuss it here first, you cannot continue edit warring. I'm tagging the other users who have reverted these edits. @Tris Wilson, @Remember, @JRBuch12, Mason7512 (talk) 23:31, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I am using quotes from the supreme court that others refuse to mention due to their political beliefs i have provided a source better than "abc news" and any other source you can come up with for this article if you disagree that is not my problem, post the truth or nothing at all, thank you. Currenteventful (talk) 00:01, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

If you think these quotes are worth including, which others have pointed out are from government lawyers (not any of the justices nor a majority opinion aka the voice of the court), they belong in the body of the article, not the lead, and need to be explicitly attributed to the source.

The sources used in the article, including ABC News, have been deemed reliable sources; Wikipedia content is based on information from reliable sources only. Mason7512 (talk) 00:25, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for your perspective @Currenteventful. I'm not opposed to the quotes being included if they are contextualized correctly and are referenced in a secondary source (per WP:BLPPRIMARY). But if they are to be included, they need to be in the right place. Here is a more detailed explanation of my reasoning for reverting earlier:

• The quotes can't properly be attributed to the Supreme Court because they are not part of a Supreme Court opinion; no Supreme Court justice contributed to the quotes in any way. Lawyers can file anything they like on the docket and the court will make it available to the public (with some exceptions); that is what has happened here.
• As Mason7512 mentioned, the quotes should go in the body of the article, not the lead. The lead should not include lengthy quotes from the parties involved; it doesn't really help readers understand the essence of the case.
• The quotes need to be in their proper context. If you found reliable sources that included quotes from both parties, and then used them to expand on the arguments in e.g. the "Contesting deportation" section in a neutral manner, it would be hard for me to fault you for that. :)

Definitely read more about policies and check with other editors who reverted before making further edits -- I hope this helps you understand my particular point of view, though! Tris Wilson (talk) 01:28, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

i could care less about the sources published as they are misleading to the topic on hand, the sole source of information provided by me is the supreme court, if you disagree that the highest court in the united states has a place being in this article determining how every person around the world view this case then you are a despicable person trying to mislead and influence those who come here. Currenteventful (talk) 00:07, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

You are a new editor, and you clearly aren't familiar with the policies here. Here are some relevant policies:

• WP:BLPPRIMARY: you cannot use court documents as sources for statements about living persons. If secondary sources quote a court ruling, it is permissible to use the quote in a secondary source, citing that secondary source instead of the court document.
• WP:CIVIL: do not insult other editors.
• WP:RS: if information is sourced to reliable sources, it doesn't matter that you, personally, do not care about those sources. For the record, SCOTUS is not the only relevant court here. They sent it back to the district court for further proceedings.
• WP:CON: editors work through consensus. If you find your edits being reverted several times, you need to work that out on the talk page, not by continuing to make disputed edits. If you nonetheless continue to make those same edits, someone is likely to take this to an administrators' noticeboard, where you may face sanctions like having your ability to edit blocked for a period of time for being disruptive and refusing to work with others to achieve consensus. I encourage you to choose to work with other editors to improve the article. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:46, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Legal status of Abrego Garcia

Two things: What was Abrego Garcia's immigration status between him entering the country and being deported? And are the accusations that he is a member of MS-13 unfounded? I'm linking an AP article which is currently the 5th reference on the page and which I'll be quoting extensively from for easy reference. Sorry if this isn't typical, I'm not very familiar with editing on wikipedia

"Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011,"

"In 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot looking for work when he was arrested by county police"

"Abrego Garcia later told an immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released" when? I'm not sure, but I'm almost certain 2019

"ICE…alleged that he was a certified gang member based on information that came from a confidential informant"

"According to Abrego Garcia’s attorneys in his current case, the criminal informant had alleged that Abrego Garcia belonged to an MS-13 chapter in New York, where he has never lived."

"The judge said the informant was proven and reliable and had verified his gang membership and rank."

"In October 2019, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s asylum request but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador because of a “well-founded fear” of gang persecution"

"Since then, Abrego Garcia has checked in with ICE yearly while the Department of Homeland Security issued him a work permit, his attorneys said in court filings."

https://apnews.com/article/trump-deportation-salvador-maryland-abrego-garcia-7b17b702b77a24d92a28dd4be5755fdd Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man ICE mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison? JRBuch12 (talk) 15:09, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Even if he were a confirmed member of a designated terrorist organization such as MS-13, which is illegal under US law, Justice Sotomayor points out in her concurring opinion that it is still typical for legal proceedings to be carried out in the US, which makes this case unusual. JRBuch12 (talk) 15:10, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

To answer your questions:

(1) legal status: I think the situation is that Garcia entered the US illegally and then didn’t submit an asylum claim in time to request asylum then was found to be able to be deported but could not be deported back to his country due to the potential for violence against him in his home country and thus giving him status to remain in the US pending resolution of that issue. I don’t know whether to label that as being “legally” here or not but I think the sources all agree that this was his status.

(2) Gang membership:the accusations about being a member of the gang were found to be credible for purposes of a bail determination but that is not the same as determination for criminal or civil penalties. Thus there has been some evidence provided regarding his affiliation with a gang but it hasn’t been the subject of long fact finding and legal determination such that it is a dispositive legal conclusion. So I wouldn’t call the accusations “unfounded”, I would call them “unresolved”. But that’s just my understanding. Remember (talk) 15:42, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

@Remember:: is it of interest to you that Bail in the United States states: "The regular rules of evidence do not apply at a bail hearing. The prosecution typically proceeds by "proffer" alone. Instead of presenting witness testimony and documents that would be admissible at trial, the prosecutor merely makes an unsworn oral promise to the judge as to what the evidence will show as to the suspect's dangerousness, likelihood of guilt, and propensity to flee the jurisdiction"? --Kizor 01:15, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I think that is very useful to note. I assumed as much. I’d ideally like a source to say this explicitly in the current case if possible. Remember (talk) 02:03, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh hey, you beat me to making a new section. Reuters describes Abrego Garcia as "a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S. legally with a work permit." In a caption, but still. NPR says that he got "withholding of removal" status and a work permit in 2019; "Since then, Abrego Garcia has lived and worked legally in Maryland". So he is living the US legally (or was until his abduction (which it is when you grab someone living in the US legally without a warrant and imprison him indefinitely without trial). And he was an illegal immigrant.

CRASH!

Did you hear that? That was the sound of the incoming nitpicking. Alas, I don't know my ass from my elbow, law-wise, so: If he was an illegal immigrant from 2011 and then lived in the US legally since 2019, does that mean he was a legal immigrant since 2019? Was it the "withholding of removal" protected status, the work permit, either, or both that meant that he lived in the US legally? A work permit isn't a travel document (or a work visa), am I right that it doesn't count for being allowed to legally be in America, only for what you're allowed to do there? Tangent: I wikilinked "work permit" to Employment authorization document instead of work permit as three seconds each of glancing at those articles' leads tells me that's what the phrase refers to in the States, was this correct? Did he stop being an illegal immigrant once he was legally in the States? Can we talk of him legally being in the States, or is there a distinction between that and legally living in the states? --Kizor 19:15, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

My understanding is that he lived in the US from 2011, illegally. Since 2019 it was documented by the police and ICE that he was living in the country, and he is granted "Withholding of Removal" status. Homeland Security issues him a work permit, and he checked in with them yearly.

In the US, according to ICE's website, Withholding of Removal status is similar to asylum, but can be applied for after being in the country illegally for a year. The main difference however is that WoR requires more evidence to prove you'll be harmed by being deported to a specific country, >51% chance of harm. WoR immigrants cannot get permanent residency, and can be deported to a different country if such an arrangement is made by the government. JRBuch12 (talk) 05:16, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Proper procedure for deportation of illegal immigrants must be followed. Any other action should be voided. He didn't properly seek asylum. The judge's decision to "withholding of removal" shall be VOID. Although El Salvador was dangerous in 2011 it wasn't officially labeled as uninhabitable by the U.S. Even if it was why should the U.S.A. be the country where everyone in the world gets to seek asylum. He did say in his defense that the gangs were trying to extort his mother's business PupUsa for money. Saying they were going to make her son a gang member and then murder him. The story sounds fishy. Kind of like he was a gang member and got scared and left. It was improper for ICE to not deport him in 2019. The current D.O.J. is doing the process right in 2025. He should be deported to his home country and be forced to spend time in jail probably 90 days for first offense and our country should pay for it. After he is released he could apply for citizenship because he is married although the marriage should be VOID because he got married in our country as an ILLEGAL ALIEN. Mikeblake00 (talk) 10:17, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

It seems to me you may have a misunderstanding of what Wikipedia does. It does not come up with original analysis of a situation but instead restates and summarizes what reliable sources have said about a notable issue in the world. Even if you were correct in all your analysis it wouldn’t matter to what we can say because it would be original research. What you need to do if you want information to be contributed to the article is find reliable sources that assert something you think is notable and then that information can be included with attribution. I hope that helped make things more clear. Thank you for your input. Remember (talk) 12:32, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh we know EXACTLY the kind of anti fact anti truth propaganda machine Wikipedia is bud... Heavily biased left very pro criminal, very pro cover up for leftist political organizations, skew, warp, ommit facts and flat out lie. WE KNOW.

https://tennesseestar.com/justice/bidens-fbi-ordered-tn-highway-patrol-to-release-maryland-man-recently-deported-to-el-salvador-after-he-was-detained-in-2022-traffic-stop-on-suspicion-of-human-trafficking/tpappert/2025/04/16/

Funny, even killary has come out laughably asking for ""Americans of conscience"" to speak out...

Well killary, I've a conscience, I'll speak out, why did you think you'd get away with a bigger scandal than Watergate having operatives spy on Trump in 15' and 16' and why did you think you'd get away with bleaching your server CLEARLY full of evidence of your criminal acts...

Oh yeah!! Because the shills of slickipedoia would run cover for you along with the Mockingbird media apparatus... That's right.

Yeah, it's clear to see as atrazine makes frogs gay that YOU, they/them (God forbid I misgender you, offend you, and give you unhealthy leftists a heart attack) are NOT in the business of reporting news following truth above polls... You're liar, a coward, and would rather demand a human trafficker for briben be brought back to America so he can beat the brakes off his wife again, than report the fact that so many innocent ACTUAL AMERICANS, have been raped and murdered by scumbags just like this one who aided in trafficking...

We see you, yes, we do. 2600:1014:B0B5:7AE5:10AB:6B9F:FF8D:84C2 (talk) 06:42, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Mentioning of wife and child as US Citizens in the lead

Currently the sentence in the intro reads as follows: “This occurred despite his having a U.S. immigration judge's order protecting him from removal to El Salvador since 2019 and a wife and five-year-old child who are both American citizens.”

The bolded information is information that some editors want removed and others want preserved. I’m bringing the issue to the talk page to resolve so we don’t keep editing in circles on this issue. Please put your thoughts below.Remember (talk) 20:58, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

• Include wife and child info in lead - I would vote to include the information in the lead since I think it is both relevant practically (most people are abhorred that the US government would separate someone from their wife and child who are both US Citizens) and legally (often the citizenship status of close family members is taken into account for legal decisions by courts). Also the wife and child are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit to bring him back. Remember (talk) 20:58, 12 April 2025 (UTC)
• Move to bio section These facts aren't mentioned anywhere in the body of the article and don't seem to have any bearing on the legal case. The lead should summarize important points from an article, not to introduce new facts/ideas. --Bob drobbs (talk) 21:01, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  The article does mention that his wife and child are US citizens and mentions that they are parties to the lawsuit against the government. Remember (talk) 21:05, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  A quick search shows that there's only 4 mentions of the word "citizen" in the article. Three of the four are in the lead. One is in regards to a legal argument about citizens being deported, nothing to do with his wife or child. Bob drobbs (talk) 21:17, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  Ah, now I see. I believe it used to be there but I think the citizenship of the wife and child was removed in some earlier edited version. I’ve added the information back in the body of the article. Remember (talk) 21:32, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  I'm still leaning toward move. I haven't seen any evidnece that this is part of any legal argument here. And it makes the article feel more "human interest" than "encyclopedic". Bob drobbs (talk) 22:37, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  I agree. Nowa (talk) 21:44, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  Comment. I'll have to think more about whether I have a preference. In the meantime, I'm wondering why the citizenship of his wife and biological child is relevant, but the citizenship of his step-children (also American) is not. He's acting as a father to all of the kids. His wife refers to all of them as his children (for example, here and here). FactOrOpinion (talk) 22:33, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  Honestly I didn’t know the position he was in with regards to his step-children (like whether he has custody or sees them at all). Happy to add that too but I originally avoiding noting information about them because I didn’t have a good RS that gave me insights into that relationship for me to describe. Happy to have that info added. Remember (talk) 22:59, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  He and his wife are raising all three kids. Here's an AP article saying "Abrego Garcia has lived in the U.S. for roughly 14 years, during which he worked construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities, according to court records," and another saying "The couple are parents to their son and her two children from a previous relationship." I'm guessing that he doesn't have legal custody, in that they might also be plaintiffs in the suit if he did. But helping raise them, and his absence matters to them. I can't find the reference right now, but I read a statement from her about how hard it is to care for all three by herself. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:33, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  I agree the information should not be in the lead. I see no reliable source in the body that states "often the citizenship status of close family members is taken into account for legal decisions by courts", nor even if that were the case, that a reliable source mentions that whether he should be deported has anything to do with whether his wife and children are US citizens.ReferenceMan (talk) 00:17, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

  Here is a reliable source that talks about how the family status is taking into account by ICE officers “An ICE spokesperson said the agency considers individual circumstances when determining whether to detain someone.” It also discusses the issues of deporting family members when a spouse or parent is a non-citizen and changes between Trump and Biden, which seems relevant in this situation as background - link. Remember (talk) 01:09, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

  Also family member status is important for gaining extreme hardship waivers that can stop a deportation if it would cause extreme hardship on a US citizen. See brief discussion in New Yorker article here - “She can get a waiver permitting her to remain in the U.S. if she can prove that her prolonged absence would cause “extreme hardship” for certain members of her family. But, because of processing delays, getting the waiver can now take three and a half years.” link. Remember (talk) 01:18, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

  I don't have a particularly strong opinion here. But I'd really like to see a RS which connects this particular case and his wife/child being citizens before putting this in the lead. Bob drobbs (talk) 02:19, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

  My point is that it is not just a legal issue, it is also a personal and narrative issue that I think most readers would find notable (that’s why it’s mentioned in most news articles). This person wasn’t just deported and imprisoned and has no one. He was deported and imprisoned in a maximum security prison and taken away from his wife and his children that are US citizens. I think most readers would find that to be one of the most notable aspects of this case. Remember (talk) 02:41, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

  So we hopefully agree it may or may not be relevant to the legal case, but that more importantly it may or may not be relevant to the narrative. In this case I'm still not sure, I think it clutters the lead JRBuch12 (talk) 04:22, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

• 'CommentIf you're going to mention his wife, it should be noted when they actually got married. It should also mention that she filed charges against him for domestic abuse. I'm not sure how you can include one, but not the other. Especially since the domestic abuse charges is a contributing factor in deportation. Also not sure why the page says "illegally deported". He had two deportation orders... the only thing that was an issue was sending him to El Salvador. But, since MS-13 is a terrorist organization, that order doesn't apply.172.56.73.141 (talk)

To address your issues: (1) it is mentioned in the article when they got married and the charges for domestic abuse just not in the lead which I think makes sense given the crowded nature of the lead; (2) you say the domestic abuse is a contributing factor in the deportation but we have no sources saying that this issue played any role in the government deciding to deport him; if you have a source to support that please provide it; (3) the page says “illegally deported” because the government in arguments already acknowledged it was illegal and the Supreme Court made that finding too; we only restate others findings, we don’t make determinations ourselves for a wiki article; and (4) you assert that his withholding status was moot due to the fact of alleged MS-13 affiliation which is what the Trump administration has asserted but that issue has not been adjudicated in court but what has already been adjudicated is a finding that the deportation was illegal given the arguments that the government made at the time of the Supreme Court decision. Remember (talk) 12:27, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Article structure - District Court vs District Court

I find it super confusing to have "District Court oversight after remand" as a different section from "United States District Court" particularly as everything else is broken up by court and none of it is necessarily sequential with things happening in parallel.

So, I'd strongly suggest moving all of the District Court stuff into the District Court section.

But I didn't want to be overly bold here. Any objections to making this change? Bob drobbs (talk) 21:04, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I personally find the current format way more understandable than if that content was moved. So, I would be opposed to this. I see it like this: If the content was moved, readers would read through the current contents of District Court then read the first part of the "after remand" content, then have to skip to SCOTUS section for context, and then returned to read the rest of the District Court section.
The main point of the current ordering is a semi-chronological telling of events- in my opinion- not strictly by court. Mason7512 (talk) 21:09, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Agreed with Mason. I tried to make the legal process generally flow chronologically to reduce confusion. Remember (talk) 21:41, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

In that case, any chance we can clarify the other titles to make it more clear it's chronological-ish instead of just grouped by court? Bob drobbs (talk) 21:43, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps something like:

• Initial consideration in a United States District Court
• Appeal to a US Court of Appeals
• Emergency docket appeal to the US Supreme Court
• Return to the United States District Court

FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:48, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

maybe we can changed the subsection name:

• Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals -> Original Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals,
• Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals -> Pre-SCOTUS Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, or
• Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals -> First Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals

possibly with -deliberation or -ruling at the end

for now, I think it would work Mason7512 (talk) 21:49, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

That works for me. Remember (talk) 23:26, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

But the issue isn't about the court of appeals. It's about the separate district court sections. I'll revise my previous suggestion for the 4 subsection titles:

• Initial consideration in the Maryland district court (or: Initial consideration in a US District Court)
• Appeal to the Fourth Circuit
• Emergency docket appeal to the US Supreme Court
• Return to the Maryland district court (or: Return to the US District Court)

Assuming that you meant that to be about the US district court rather than the 4th Circuit, I don't think Original/Pre-SCOTUS/First work as the distinguishing word, as Original and First suggest that there was a change in the district court rather than a return to the same court, and Pre-SCOTUS refers to something we haven't yet gotten to. Also, for all we know, there's going to be another appeal to SCOTUS's emergency docket. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:47, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Sorry about that, I copy/pasted the wrong section title. Concerning Original/Pre-SCOTUS, etc.: I wasn't sure on the wording, that was just what came to mind when trying to pitch an alternative to combining the sections, a way to separate the sections by chronology. I am 100% not specifically in favor of them. You or someone else can probably put it in better words. Mason7512 (talk) 00:00, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree as well, a chronological sequence is what makes most sense. It's even possible that there will be another situation where Xinis rules, and Trump appeals to the 4th Circuit and possibly SCOTUS on the emergency docket again. But we could add a sentence or two at the top of the Contesting deportation section, explaining the sequence a bit. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:44, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

It strikes me that it may be time to start a new article that is a timeline version of essentially this article. It's likely that both would be helpful. I'd like to say I could start it, but (and this is a good case for the timeline, tbh) I haven't been able to follow the developments over the last few days; it feels like a Herculean task to get caught up, though I will do so soon. Which is all to say: if anyone else wants to get it started, please do! Iknowyoureadog (talk) 07:42, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

New filing

Looks like Trump administration is arguing that the previous restrictions on removal no longer apply based on the idea that MS-13 is now a terrorist organization. “ On March 15, 2025, Abrego-Garcia, a native and citizen of El Salvador, was removed to El Salvador, pursuant to Title 8 of the United States Code. Although Abrego-Garcia has an order of removal issued by an immigration judge, I understand that he should not have been removed to El Salvador because the immigration judge had also granted Abrego-Garcia withholding of removal to El Salvador. However, I also understand that Abrego Garcia is no longer eligible for withholding of removal because of his membership in MS-13 which is now a designated foreign terrorist organization. I have reviewed the declaration of Mr. Michael Kozak, which was filed in this case yesterday, April 12, 2025. It is my understanding that Defendants have no updates for the Court beyond what was provided yesterday.” We should add this argument. Link to filing. [2] Remember (talk) 23:28, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

If you have a BLP-compliant source discussing that part of their argument, add a sentence about it. I already added their refusal to answer Xinis's questions again and their argument that they have no responsibility to seek his return. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:33, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I’ll see what I can find when I can. Busy in real life. Remember (talk) 00:29, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I totally understand. Sometimes I also post things in case someone else wants to make use of it. It can easily wait or be left out right now (if it's really important, the judge and RSs will let us know). FactOrOpinion (talk) 01:19, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I am new here. I just obtained the court docs referenced above from pacer. Is that a BLP-compliant source? How can I help? jpshackelford

in general people don’t like to cite to primary sources and instead want citations to be to secondary sources. I found a source to cite the following to “While acknowledging that he “should not have been removed to El Salvador because” of the immigration judge’s ruling, Evan C. Katz of ICE wrote that Abrego García “is no longer eligible for withholding of removal because of his membership in MS-13 which is now a designated foreign terrorist organization.” And I was going to add it. But thank you for the offer! Remember (talk) 16:18, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

@Jpshackelford: Welcome to Wikipedia! No, court documents cannot be used as a source for statements about living persons, per a policy, WP:BLPPRIMARY, that says, "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person." However, it can sometimes be useful to read court documents, in the sense that they put you in a position to go in search of a source that is compliant with the policy on content about living persons (that general policy is WP:BLP). FWIW, CourtListener often has free copies of court documents, so you don't necessarily have to spend money on Pacer; if you add their extension to your browser and you do buy a document from Pacer, the extension will also allow that document to be added to their free materials for others to use (more info here). In the article, we've linked to the CourtListener dockets for this case, and you'll be able to see which documents are freely available and which aren't. In terms of helping, is there some aspect of the case that interests you? If so, read the section about it, and see if there's anything important that you think is missing, and then search for a reliable source with that info (here's the policy about reliable sources: WP:RS). FactOrOpinion (talk) 16:46, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

contradiction in leade

The first sentence of the lead says that Garcia was in the US illegally: "Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen who was an illegal immigrant residing in Maryland."

But the last sentence of first paragraph says: "he was legally present in the U.S."

This as written is confusing (was he in US illegally or not at the time of his arrest?). I think the first sentence is intended to convey that he emigrated to the US illegally, but the last sentence seems to say that he was given asylum. thoughts? referring to this version: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deportation_of_Kilmar_Abrego_Garcia&oldid=1285602207 CipherSleuth (talk) 17:21, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Looks like that was added by an ip address, and has already been cleaned up. Bob drobbs (talk) 17:25, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

thanks. I should have looked at the edit history more closely. CipherSleuth (talk) 17:28, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I tried to clarify precise legal status in the lead. Hopefully, the current wording works for everyone. Remember (talk) 17:47, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I've seen reporting saying that he was in the country legally, but I've never seen any good discussion of this. That he had a withholding of removal order did not make his presence legal; it only meant that he couldn't be deported to El Salvador. He wasn't granted asylum (he applied too late). The government has claimed that he had a final deportation order. Perhaps they're referring to the BIA hearing that occurred after the judge granted the withholding of removal, where they affirmed the original judge's deportation order? So the government is currently treating his presence as illegal. But I do not trust all of their statements to be truthful at this point. He had a work permit and was checking in with ICE annually, which suggests some kind of legal status. Has anyone seen a good discussion of his post-2019 legal status? FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:58, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I think maybe "legal" or "illegal" may be too simplistic to describe the current situation given all the associated connotations with just that phrase. The current situation as I understand it is that the US Government had determined that he didn't have a specific status to be in the United States indefinitely as an immigrant but he did have status to remain and not be deported to El Salvador given the threats to his safety. I don't know if we have a simple phrase to refer to this type of status besides the fact that he had a "withholding of removal". Remember (talk) 18:06, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Agreed that it's not simple. Post-2019, he had a work permit from DHS, he had a legal withholding of removal order for El Salvador (which allowed his removal to any other country), and he had an order to check in with ICE annually, which he abided by. So post-2019, the US was aware of his presence and location, gave him permission to work, and did not attempt to deport him. We could just leave it at that. Or we can try to survey RSs, and if they disagree, we say that. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:45, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. I’m happy either way and happy with your efforts to clarify things.Remember (talk) Remember (talk) 19:05, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Reuters describes Abrego Garcia as "a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S. legally with a work permit." In a caption, but still. NPR says that he got "withholding of removal" status and a work permit in 2019; "Since then, Abrego Garcia has lived and worked legally in Maryland." I stuck them in the withholding of removal subsection (and based on them, a couple days later I reworked the clarification Remember wrote about this to the lead, hopefully not un-clarifying it.) --Kizor 00:23, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Lead rewrite?

This is quickly becoming a major news story. I'd suggest a rewrite of the lead starting with the most important points and then filling in more details:

1) Accidentally deported
2) Supreme Court said to facilitate his return
3) Trump and Bukele said no.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 17:28, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm open to a rewrite, but I suggest we do it on the talk page first otherwise I think we will have circular editing wars and people try to revert to the previous version and others try to create something new. So I would suggest you pitch something below. For myself, I think the current intro works but I am always happy to improve for readability and clarity. Remember (talk) 17:50, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm open to a rewrite. I also just rewrote the lead myself. I'm a bet leery of talk page negotiations that fast-developing articles can far outpace, I'm ok at ingesting large amounts of badly organized text in our articles and regurgitating it in a form where it's at least had a once-over, and I have previously worked on high-activity articles on high-profile breaking news.

My reasons for rewriting are that I'm impudent, selfish, and wanted to make a difference. The above is just why I thought it might work out okay.

My priorities were the same as Bob's, with the addition of 1a) ...and jailed, as part of the US-El Salvador deal to jail U.S. deportees. The fact that the U.S. is sending deportees to a foreign prison, as opposed to sending them to a foreign country where the justice system decides that they're bad bad dudes and jails them, is important to note in general and also about our dude specifically. Including what everyone else changed, we went from this to this, which I think states the important things as Bob listed them better, and is less of a cluttered "this happened, then that happened" and a bit more of a thought-out overview. The "When asked during his meeting..." paragraph is a bit out of place, and if I was productive I'd turn the "Return to the Maryland district court" subsection into a new section about facilitating his return or contesting his return or something (after all, are the legal proceedings still contesting his deportation, or is that part done and now they're arguing about what to do next?), and toss that paragraph into a subsection about the administration's resistance. @FactOrOpinion: my thanks for tirelessness with the "illegally" bit, I hope adding that it was the Supreme Court calling it illegal will help. @Remember:, @Bob drobbs: what I just did: for, against, angry? --Kizor 21:09, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I made some revisions to the lead to clarify and make sure we’re weren’t misleading anyone regarding the nature of what occurred. Remember (talk) 22:25, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

They're sweet, thank you for making them. For future reference, are there things we should be particularly careful about in order to not mislead people? I re-added a mention of this being per the agreement in exchange for money, per 1a) above, plus it's relevant to the third paragraph, where Sotomayor speaks of the U.S. government and not the Salvadoran government deporting and incarcerating people. But speaking of not misleading, is my source for that sufficient? Relevant part: "Bukele has been a key ally to Trump as he ramps up deportations to the notorious Salvadoran prison. The Trump administration is paying the Salvadoran government $6 million to house migrants there." --Kizor 22:35, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I took an attempt at re-doing it on a draft page. I cut away a LOT of the lead just keeping highlights.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Deportation_of_Kilmar_Abrego_Garcia

Thoughts? Bob drobbs (talk) 22:48, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Lock page?

This page has already become a political flashpoint, with frequent vandalism to change the lede to misstate the person’s residence status. Suggest locking the page to prevent continuous vandalism. Anonymouse202 (talk) 18:45, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

100%. I'd suggest Semi-protected -- Bob drobbs (talk) 19:07, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:15, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Protection requested. ✅

Wikipedia:Requests_for_page_protection/Increase#Deportation_of_Kilmar_Abrego_Garcia

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 19:48, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Admin chose to semi-protect us for 4 days, after which it will expire.

Let's see if we're still headline news and need to be protected again after that... Bob drobbs (talk) 20:05, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

On a related topic, this page was the 2nd highest traffic'd article on all of wikipedia yesterday. We'll probably have to extend the protection when it expires, and let's keep up the good work! -- Bob drobbs (talk) 15:28, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Detention per the agreement between US and El Salvador?

The lead states that Abrego Garcia is being detained “per the agreement between the two countries to jail U.S. deportees there in exchange for money.” Do we have a source that supports this assertion? I know the US paid El Salvador for certain detentions but is this one of the ones paid for? Remember (talk) 22:39, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

The source says "The Trump administration is paying the Salvadoran government $6 million to house migrants there," but it doesn't specify whether Abrego Garcia is in this group. I don't know how that could be determined without either a Trump admin. statement or access to the agreement between the two countries. I'd probably remove it from the lead and include something in the body, where we can say a bit more. Certainly the 3 flights that took people to CECOT were part of the agreement to imprison US deportees there for pay, even if we cannot vouch that every prisoner is part of that agreement, or if the Salvadorans were just sent back and then Bukele chose to imprison them at his own expense. FactOrOpinion (talk) 22:52, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

This 3/16 tweet from Bukele said "Today, the first 238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization, Tren de Aragua, arrived in our country. ... The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us. ... the U.S. has also sent us 23 MS-13 members wanted by Salvadoran justice ...," which suggests that the payment doesn't cover the Salvadorans, though it's not certain; it could just be that he wanted to discuss the Venezuelans and Salvadorans separately. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:11, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

• You're right. I figured the source was iffy (and says a lot about me that I went ahead anyway). It's infuriating: we have AP saying there's an agreement to accept and jail deportees from the U.S. of any nationality. We have The Atlantic saying that Abrego Garcia's lawyer is seeking to withhold that payment. And we have sources for how Abrego Garcia was never charged or tried in El Salvador. But even the source we have that says Garcia's lawyers are seeking to withhold funds to stop the agreement to imprison US deportees there for pay doesn't spell it out that Garcia is part of the agreement to imprison US deportees there for pay.
  
  Would it be tolerable if we shored up what's in the article with The Guardian saying that the US paying El Salvador to detain deportees in CECOT has bearing on Abrego Garcia's case and AP stating Abrego Garcia's lawyers say the US is paying El Salvador for his imprisonment? Or would that be SYNTH, considering that, yeah, it's AP saying his lawyers are saying that, not AP saying that. --Kizor 23:23, 14 April 2025 (UTC)
• ABC states: "Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador as part of what the Trump administration described as a $6 million deal with Salvadoran authorities in which they would house deported migrants in exchange for payment." I've replaced the old source with this. However, the article behind the words "$6 million deal" only speaks of the over 200 Venezuelans "as part of a $6 million deal", it doesn't mention El Salvadorans. Is that a problem? --Kizor 23:50, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  I’m going to remove the language from the lead given this discussion. Remember (talk) 00:11, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

ABC's straightforward mention of exactly what we were looking for looks like a usable source to me, even though the other article it links to only talks of Venezuelans. @Remember: what's your take on it? (Also, while we're at it, I'm still kinda new to pinging people on Wikipedia, so is doing so here an appropriate way to ask for your attention or is it impolite and demanding?) --Kizor 00:31, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Pinging me here works for me. As for the source, I think it’s still unclear given that the source you say ABC is referring to doesn’t back up the claim. But I’m happy to be persuaded otherwise and happy to do differently if others feel differently. Remember (talk) 00:58, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. The thing ABC's article contains a link to is another article by ABC, and not a reference or explainer either, just a normal article. So... the issue is less of a "not in citation given", more like half that, half an inappropriate "see also"? --Kizor 01:05, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

• I'm not thinking that clearly right now, but that doesn't strike me as SYNTH to say something like "Abrego Garcia's lawyers have said that the US is paying El Salvador for his imprisonment," citing the AP; but we can't write "the US is paying El Salvador for his imprisonment," citing the AP. If there's reporting on it, we can also say that the Trump admin. hasn't made the agreement public, and A.G.'s lawyers have asked Xinis to order the government to provide a copy of the agreement or provide a witness who can testify about it. We might get some reporting about that soon, depending on how Xinis responds to the request. I'm guessing that she's not happy with the admin's claims that they don't need to comply with Friday's order. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:18, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I re-added it with a "his lawyers argue," citing AP, that I'd like to get rid of. I also tossed in the AP article from February about the agreement. --Kizor 01:44, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

This PolitiFact article notes that A.G. has never been charged with a crime in El Salvador (nor, as far as I can tell, even charged with any crime), so it's questionable that they'd imprison A.G. if not for a U.S. request that they do so. That implies that the U.S. is paying, though the article doesn't say that. It's unlike the situation with this Salvadoran member of MS-13, César Antonio López Larios, who was also deported to CECOT on 3/15, but who has been in pretrial detention after indictment at different times in both the US and El Salvador. I still don't think we have enough info to put it in the article, but I'm now more convinced of the likelihood that US is paying for him to be imprisoned. FactOrOpinion (talk) 22:30, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

@Remember:, @FactOrOpinion: heads up, ABC's new article states: "Abrego Garcia, who has been living in Maryland with his U.S. citizen wife and 5-year-old child, is being held in El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison, along with hundreds of other alleged migrant gang members, under an arrangement in which the Trump administration is paying El Salvador $6 million to house migrants deported from the United States as part of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown." It doesn't have the link issue that was the stumbling block of the previous one, so I solved the unwieldy length and inaccurate statements this part of the lead was having by bulldozing them and replacing them with this, but I still want to run it past you two. Remember, you've been more careful than me to be truthful and fair, and FactOrOpinion, I guess you're cool too. My lingering question about how this article puts it is, wasn't the $6M just for the Venezuelans? But we know the agreement's to jail deportees of any nation; we know it's overwhelmingly been used to jail Venezuelans but hasn't been limited to them, nor intended to; and we know that since the prisoners have been overwhelmingly Venezuelans, the $6M it's cost the USA to jail just the Venezuelans is also close to what the whole thing's cost so far unless there's a 1000% surcharge for detaining Salvadorans without trial or something. So the way ABC puts it, a $6M deal to jail migrants, seems accurate to me. --Kizor 00:03, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, and yesterday Sen. Van Hollen said that when he asked Salvadoran Vice President Ulloa why they were holding Abrego Garcia in prison, given that he hadn't been convicted of any crimes in either El Salvador or the US, Ulloa said it was because the US was paying El Salvador to hold A.G. at CECOT. I trust Van Hollen's word. Judge Xinis also ordered expedited discovery on Tuesday, and A.G.'s lawyers have asked for a wide variety of documents, and then starting on p. 49, interrogatory questions that a small # of Trump admin. officials will have to answer, one of which is "List each payment that has been, or will be, made or withheld in connection with the detention at CECOT of Abrego Garcia and other individuals removed or deported from the United States or transported by You from the United States to El Salvador, including when each payment was or will be made or withheld, in what amount, by whom, and to whom." So hopefully we'll also learn more details soon. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:35, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Todays filing in case

The most recent filing in the case is here - [3]. Government asserting that the withholding status no longer applies because he is a member of MS-13 and that El Salvador won’t return him. We need a reliable source to cite this to if we want to include it but including it here for understanding of the case for those following the case. Remember (talk) 23:46, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Law requiring the Secretary of State to notify Congress of international agreements

Sen. Shaheen, the ranking Dem. on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent this letter to Rubio today (scroll down a bit for the text of the full letter, there's also a link to a nicer pdf copy). She asked that he "expedite the release of all those who have been unlawfully detained in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center," including Abrego Garcia, and went on to note:

Pursuant to the Case-Zablocki Act (1 U.S.C. § 112b), as amended by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (P.L. 117-263), the State Department is generally obligated to provide to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee agreements or non-binding instruments that are the “subject of a written communication from the Chair or Ranking Member” of either Committee. ...

This letter constitutes the statutorily required “written communication.” As such, please provide the text of any implementing agreements, arrangements for international agreements, or non-binding instruments referenced in the attached declarations by you and Senior Bureau Official Kozak, or any such agreements, arrangements, or non-binding instrument made within the past four months related to the deportation of Venezuelan nationals or other alleged criminals to El Salvador, as soon as possible.

There's no agreement among editors about what is and isn't considered WP:SPS. If it's SPS, it can't be used for a statement about living persons, per WP:BLPSPS. I haven't been able to find good coverage of this yet, so this is a heads up asking those interested to be on the lookout for reporting about it, as it would be significant for this article and March 2025 American deportations of Venezuelans (and perhaps also for the J.G.G. v. Trump + offspring cases) to be able to have more specific info in the article about the law's requirements / whether the Administration is complying and, if it isn't classified / is made public, to learn what the agreement is. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:04, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Footnote numbering

Why is the footnote numbering not in order? Like footnote 8 is the first one you read? Can someone fix this? Remember (talk) 00:14, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

the preceding references 1-7 are located in the note concerning his name (labeled [a]). I don't think there is a way to change that, they come first, so will be displayed first. Mason7512 (talk) 00:20, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Got it. Thank you! That makes sense. Forget my comment. Remember (talk) 00:56, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

SCOTUS ruling: unanimous? also, the footnote

Several times, I've removed the word "unanimous" from the SCOTUS ruling, and several times, it's been reinserted. Yes, many reliable news sources call it a unanimous ruling, but as constitutional law professor Steve Vladeck states, "Technically, we don’t know that Thursday night’s ruling was unanimous. As I’ve explained before, when the Court doesn’t issue a signed opinion, we can’t ever be sure of the vote count unless enough justices publicly dissent. But it certainly seems unlikely that there were stealth dissents from last night’s order." (His faculty page: he has a named chair and has argued before SCOTUS, and constitutional law is one of his foci. He also wrote a book about the court's shadow docket.) He's a better source than news sources, so per WP:BESTSOURCES, I don't think that we should say "unanimous," even if it's very likely.

I just read Vladeck's linked discussion about opinions and orders, and he pointed out that there's such a thing as "Opinions Relating to Orders: If there is no opinion of the Court, but at least one Justice writes a separate opinion either concurring in or dissenting from the disposition, it will appear on this page." I'm not a lawyer and hadn't know that there's a difference between orders and opinions. But the Opinions Relating to Orders page is where this ruling appeared, so I guess the general response from the court was an order, and Sotomayor's statement is an opinion.

@Pedropaulovc, you added a footnote saying "Unanimous and signed opinions are not considered per curiam decisions, as only the court can officially designate opinions as per curiam." I don't think that's correct, per your citation, but it's also moot: now we know that it was an unsigned order, not an opinion, and hence couldn't be a per curiam opinion. I'm inclined to remove the footnote, but if it's kept, it has to be modified to be accurate. FactOrOpinion (talk) 01:15, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

This is an irrelevant technicality. For all intents and purposes this was a unanimous decision. Reliable sources are overwhelmingly describing this as an “unanimous” or “9-0” decision. So this is what Wikipedia should say.

Some examples:

• “Late in the day on April 10, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion relating to an order in the case of Noem v. Abrego Garcia.”https://natlawreview.com/article/deportation-ruling-highlights-potential-separation-powers-clash-scotus-today?amp
• “In a 9-0 ruling, the justices declined to block a lower court's order” https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62gnzzeg34o.amp

{{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 08:12, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I disagree that it's "an irrelevant technicality", since policy says to use WP:BESTSOURCES, not the majority of GREL sources. Yes, many GREL news sources say "unanimous." Many other GREL news sources say that there were no noted dissents without calling it unanimous (examples: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). It's best to be accurate. FactOrOpinion (talk) 12:54, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

The SCOTUSblog article you reported mentions: "In an unsigned opinion without any recorded dissents". This is the accurate description however it is too technical. I think WP:TECHNICAL applies here. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 18:32, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree that it's overly technical and confusing to the reader but could we perhaps make it technically correct and clear by including both:

"On April 10, the Supreme Court released an unsigned order with no public dissents, described by many (most?) sources as 'Unanimous'"

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:39, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

That mostly works for me, but I don't think most readers interpret "sources" the way WP uses that term. Maybe "described by many journalists as 'unanimous'"? FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:51, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Still seems a bit excessive to me. How about calling it "unanimous" but with a footnote explaining? {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 19:14, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I have some mixed feelings here, but I'm leaning toward Gtoffoletto's proposal.

I definitely don't like just the technical version, and agree my compromise is overly wordy. Bob drobbs (talk) 19:37, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Sure, that's OK with me. The footnote can say something like "Unsigned orders do not specify a vote count(citation 1), so it is not known whether the court was actually unanimous, only that there were no public dissents."(citation 2) FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:53, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I like this wording and those sources JRBuch12 (talk) 01:26, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Fine by me as a start. I think we should further simplify the note. {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 15:20, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I simplified it a bit further and added the footnote. Hopefully that text works for everyone. Thanks for working with me to find a consensus solution. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:45, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Help: Spanish Wikipedia article of Kilmar is slander

Greetings, I've been translating this article and including information contained here into the Spanish Wikipedia, but a couple of users insist in falsely claiming Kilmar is a dangerous criminal and a gang member. They went as far as to create a template of him as a member of Mara Salvatrucha and falsely denounced me for "vandalism" even though I've included references to my edits. About half an hour ago I've been blocked from editing for one day. I would like to know if anyone here can help make the article in the Spanish Wikipedia less MAGA. Rosameliamartinez (talk) 10:11, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Given I can't edit the Spanish Wikipedia, it would be helpful if anyone places templates at the beginning of that article indicating that the neutrality of that article is disputed, that there are unverifiable claims (specially the part where he is classified as a gang member is particularly egregious). Rosameliamartinez (talk) 10:32, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

@Rosameliamartinez, I have no experience with es.wiki, and my Spanish is not good enough to contribute there. But if it's like en.wiki, it's possible to appeal a block, and you'll be able to post an appeal on your user talk page even though you can't edit the rest of the wiki. If that's not possible on es.wiki, you might seek help from one of the WikiProjects that focus on Spanish-speaking countries (e.g., WP:MEXICO), on the assumption that there will be more Spanish speakers there. Either way, I suggest once you're unblocked, you seek help from other editors on es.wiki, pointing out the issue, noting the importance of not making defamatory claims on a BLP article, and saying that you don't want to engage in edit warring or be falsely accused of vandalism, and so need help dealing with it. If it's like en.wiki, there will be relevant noticeboards where you can ask for this kind of help, analogous to WP:BLPN here. I see that someone has added the disputed neutrality template. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:18, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 April 2025

Remove the braised article! 2603:8001:6802:5617:EC22:190A:9340:5C76 (talk) 10:42, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

• Not done It would be helpful if you could leave a specific suggestion on how to improve the neutrality of the article.

Nowa (talk) 11:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

@Nowa For example, not talking about "issues" with the deportation of a person who was in the country illegally and who was ruled to be a MS-13 gang member by two separate courts 80.98.149.110 (talk) 20:30, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Abrego Garcia was never "ruled to be a MS-13 gang member by two separate courts", multiple sources directly debunk this: Politifact,The Washington Post. You are referring to a pre-trial bail determination, not a conviction nor legal ruling on allegations of membership (which requires a higher standard of evidence). He entered the country illegally, but was not in the country illegally at the time of his deportation. It's understandable that you may be misinformed, but please do not spread lies about living people. Mason7512 (talk) 20:51, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

The Politifact essay was very helpful. Apparently he was denied bail from ICE custody back in 2019 because he was accused of being a gang member by one of the people he was with. The courts did not rule on whether he was a gang member or not, only that being accused of being a gang member was enough for ICE to deny someone bail. Subsequently, he was released by ICE after he received protection from being deported to El Salvador due to credible threats of harm if he were to be returned there. All of this appears to currently be covered in the article.Nowa (talk) 21:18, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 April 2025 (2)

In the 5th paragraph of the "Background" section, "immigration" is misspelled as "immigrationi" in the phrase "the standards of evidence are lower in an immigrationi bond hearing than in a trial" Getchoo-uh-huh (talk) 23:13, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

 Done — https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Deportation_of_Kilmar_Abrego_Garcia&diff=prev&oldid=1285809866 BappleBusiness^[talk] 23:25, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Semi-Protected Edit Request: Replace Paraphrase with Quotation from Immigration Judge

In the "Background" section under the "October 2019 immigration court proceeding" subheading, the first paragraph currently has a quotation of a summary from an NPR reporter about Garcia's 2019 hearing. However, the direct quotation from the judge in 2019 is available in U.S. Supreme Court: Noem v. Abrego Garcia, 24A949 (reference #7).

Article currently reads, "However, Immigration Judge David M. Jones granted him "withholding of removal" status that would prevent his deportation to a specific country due to the threat that gangs would pose to him, finding that (as NPR put it) 'he was more likely than not to be harmed if he was returned to El Salvador.'"

I feel that 1. it is best to have direct quotation as opposed to a quotation of a paraphrase, 2. readers who are biased against NPR may view this as not a fact but as an opinion, and 3. the text within the parentheses is somewhat informal and detracts from the tone of the article.

Thus, I suggest using the original quotation from the judge in the following revision:

"However, Immigration Judge David M. Jones granted him "withholding of removal" status that would prevent his deportation to a specific country due to the threat that gangs would pose to him, finding that Garcia faced a "clear probability of future persecution" and "demonstrated that [El Salvador’s] authorities were and would be unable or unwilling to protect him.” [7][19][27]

I am unsure if the document being quoted in the Supreme Court ruling is available. Did my best to look around to no avail.

Additionally, my apologies if anything is formatted incorrectly, this is my first edit request! Open to any and all feedback. Thanks! Striving4peace314 (talk) 08:19, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

The proposed text has “El Salvador” in brackets which may be confusing to readers. Perhaps the brackets could be explained in a footnote. Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:14, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Per WP:BLPPRIMARY, we cannot use court documents as sources for content about living persons. Unless that quote appears in a reliable secondary source, it cannot be used in the article. FactOrOpinion (talk) 12:21, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I tried looking up the quote to see if any reliable secondary sources covered it. I couldn't find much. This article in Reason (magazine) is helpful, but shows that the quote is problematic. In the quote, Sotomayor shows "El Salvador" in brackets. That means it wasn't in the original text. The full quote in the original Immigration Judge (IJ) decision makes several references to Guatemala. So it is Sotomayor's opinion that the IJ was actually referring to El Salvador. My feeling is that we don't use the quote until if/when more RS more fully clarify it. Nowa (talk) 13:26, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

The article you linked to isn't published in Reason; it's from the Center for Immigration Studies. It's unclear to me whether Arthur's discussions go through any kind of editorial review or if they're more akin to a personal blog (in which case we cannot use that either, per BLPSPS, even though it's hosted by CIS). Perhaps you meant this discussion in Reason. Volokh describe this as "a group blog" (again probably SPS, even though it's hosted by Reason).

If it's important to have a quote, the best source I've found is this CNBC article, which quotes Justice Sotomayor quoting from Jones: "The Government remains bound by an Immigration Judge's 2019 order expressly prohibiting Abrego Garcia's removal to El Salvador because he faced a 'clear probability of future persecution' there." An earlier version of that article has a longer quote from Sotomayor: "The Government remains bound by an Immigration Judge’s 2019 order expressly prohibiting Abrego Garcia’s removal to El Salvador because he faced a ‘clear probability of future persecution’ there and 'demonstrated that [El Salvador’s] authorities were and would be unable or unwilling to protect him.'" That's equivalent to what Striving4peace314 wanted to quote directly from Jones. FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:03, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. You are right, I posted the wrong article. The one you linked to was the one I had in mind. According to its Wikipedia entry, reports by Center for Immigration Studies "have been disputed by scholars on immigration, fact-checkers and news outlets, and immigration-research organizations." I don't think, therefore, we can use it as RS. Reason magazine, on the other hand, seems reliable enough to me to use as a reference. We also have, as you pointed out, the earlier version of the CNBC article, although a later version did remove the Sotomayor quote about (presumably) El Salvador authorities being "unable or unwilling" to protect Garcia. All in all, I'm on the fence about including the "unable or unwilling" quote. It feels like an important observation, there is some RS coverage, but since this is a contentious article, I'm not sure it's necessary in terms of increasing the reliability of the article relative to the PBS quote. Nowa (talk) 22:14, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I went ahead and added it, with a footnote re: the bracketed [El Salvador]. It's the last sentence of the first paragraph in the "October 2019 immigration court proceeding" section. See if you're OK with that text. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:23, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Sounds good. Nowa (talk) 23:38, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Suggestion to move text to footnote

I would suggest we move the following text to a footnote. While it is useful in the article to clear up any confusion related to this issue, I think it works better as a footnote:

An article in Time Magazine reported on April 10, 2025 that "the gang continued to harass the family after they moved to Guatemala, which borders El Salvador." A few days later, The Hill reported that "the immigration judge’s order granted Abrego Garcia protection against removal, but referred a number of times to 'Guatemala' rather than El Salvador for reasons that are unclear." The immigration judge also referred to El Salvador, as in this instance: "Here, the respondent has not shown that it is 'more likely than not' that he would be tortured if he were to be returned to El Salvador."

Remember (talk) 11:44, 16 April 2025 (UTC) Remember (talk) 11:44, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree about putting it in a footnote, and I'd cut it down to just the quote from The Hill.

FWIW, having read the ruling, I personally think that the judge simply lost track and started writing "Guatemala" when he meant "El Salvador." He didn't explicitly write that the family moved to Guatemala. He wrote "At present [in October 2019], even though the family has shut down the pupusa business, Barrio 18 continues to harass and threaten the Respondent's two sisters and parents in Guatemala," which implies that they moved there without saying that they moved. Earlier in the ruling, he explicitly noted specific moves, each of which was a very local move: "He was born in 1995 in Los Nogales neighborhood, San Salvador, El Salvador. ... [Because of threats from the Barrio 18 gang, they] moved from Los Nogales to the 10th of October neighborhood. This town was about 10 minutes away ... Finally, the family decided that they had to close the pupusa business and move to another area, Los Andes, about a 15 minute drive from their last residence." To me, "finally" suggests that they did not move again. Even if they did move, it doesn't say when / whether it was before or after A.G. left for the U.S. But of course, my personal interpretation can't go in the article; that would be OR. Still, this is why I'm inclined to only include the statement from The Hill. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:18, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for moving it! Remember (talk) 17:37, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

You're welcome! It got me to learn how to use the efn template, so that's a plus. I ended up adding another sentence+citation to make it clear that the government has stated that it was a withholding of removal to El Salvador, so despite the immigration judge having sometimes written "Guatemala," all of the lawyers and judges in this 2025 case have interpreted it as a withholding of removal to El Salvador. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:53, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I disagree with removing this quote: “the gang continued to harass the family after they moved to Guatemala, which borders El Salvador.” It was in not just Time Magazine but also CBS, Associated Press, etc. We are supposed to follow reliable sources rather than oppose them. Anyone who has doubts about it should think it over: Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. in 2012. The immigration court decision was in 2019. Even if Abrego Garcia’s final residence prior to the U.S. was in El Salvador, his family may well have moved to Guatemala between 2012 and 2019. That move to Guatemala could be relevant for any number of reasons (e.g. the immigration judge considered his social group to be his family, and so it would be awkward to say that he faced discrimination in El Salvador because of his social group if his social group had already moved to another country). Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:45, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I think if you check, you'll find that there's a single story, written by Ben Finley of the Associated Press and republished by many other news media through AP's distribution system. For example, that's the case with the Time story, which identifies "Ben Finley / AP" as the author. Here's the original AP source. I don't have the impression that the places that republish AP News stories independently check them. They don't seem to edit them: that identical sentence, "The gang continued to harass the family after they moved to Guatemala, which borders El Salvador," appears across the republications. If you can come up with a story about it that isn't quoting Finley's story, please cite it, and we can discuss it further. Otherwise it's not reliable sources (plural), only one source. If you think "it would be awkward to say that he faced discrimination in El Salvador because of his social group if his social group had already moved to another country," then that's just more evidence that his family remained in El Salvador, since the judge did grant a withholding of removal to El Salvador and considered his family to be his social group. The judge's ruling makes no sense if his family was no longer in El Salvador. The judge never wrote that the family moved to Guatemala, despite discussing other moves in detail, naming the neighborhood each time and identifying how far they moved each time. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:49, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia policy, “Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources.” When an AP article is republished by another reliable source, that increases the prominence of the information. As for what the immigration judge said and meant, we already say in the footnote that it’s unclear. This image may be helpful for you in that regard. Anyway, I’m simply asking to please quote the AP/CBS in the note that you added. It seems like a small request. Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:50, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I take it that you haven't found any source that isn't simply republishing Finley's story. I disagree that it's multiple sources. It's a single source reprinted a bunch of times, just like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet gets reprinted a lot. I'm familiar with WP:NPOV, and I don't agree that it's DUE. Another editor can change it. As for your image, I'd already read the entire document, thanks (I even quoted from it above). Consider this quote from Justice Sotomayor's statement, where she quotes from Judge Jones' ruling:

The Government remains bound by an Immigration Judge’s 2019 order expressly prohibiting Abrego Garcia’s removal to El Salvador because he faced a “clear probability of future persecution” there and “demonstrated that [El Salvador’s] authorities were and would be unable or unwilling to protect him.”

Do you think she was wrong to replace "Guatemala" with "[El Salvador]", but all of the other justices just held their tongues about a significant error? FactOrOpinion (talk) 03:35, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I haven’t looked for a source beyond Finley because it’s completely unnecessary assuming we follow policy. CBS, Time Magazine, and the rest do not republish everything that AP writes, only the stuff that they deem most significant. As for Justice Sotomayor, I have no idea if she was correct or not, I have no opinion about it, and it’s almost entirely irrelevant to this unfortunate discussion about whether we should briefly mention in a note that the family in question moved to Guatemala. Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:03, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

You haven't convinced me that it improves the article or that NPOV requires it. Nothing is stopping you from trying to convince someone else. I think Justice Sotomayor's quote is extremely relevant. The issue is whether Jones made any mistakes in writing "Guatemala" when he meant "El Salvador." Sotomayor concluded that he did. Other justices joined her concurrence, and of those that didn't, not a single one suggested that she was wrong. They all seem to agree that Jones wrote "Guatemala" when he meant "El Salvador." FactOrOpinion (talk) 04:15, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Justice Sotomayor is no more a reliable source than Justice Thomas or President Trump, and I have not proposed to add anything to the existing note, about any of them. Nor have you AFAIK. Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:47, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

If you think that the Supreme Court is not a more reliable source of legal information than Trump (who is known as a fountain of false and misleading statements), I don't know what to say. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:51, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Here is the further source your requested, plus the Finley source….

• Ramirez, Nikki and Bart, Ryan. ”The Trump Admin’s Lies About Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Debunked”, Rolling Stone (April 16, 2025): “Barrio 18…continued to harass members of his family who fled to Guatemala.”

• Finley, Ben. “What to Know About Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Deportee SCOTUS Ordered Trump Admin to Return”, Associated Press via Time Magazine (April 10, 2025): “the gang continued to harass the family after they moved to Guatemala, which borders El Salvador.” This article was also published by NBC Philadelphia, NBC Chicago, Yahoo News, Fox, U.S. News & World Report, ABC, Seattle Post Intelligencer, etc.

Please note that, “Most editors say that Rolling Stone is a partisan source in the field of politics, and that their statements in this field should be attributed.” Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:54, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

The problem (as I see it) with the information is that it is too confusing to be of much use to the reader. We have sources saying that some of his family moved to Guatemala at some point to escape harassment but they were still harassed. But because we don’t know when that happened or to whom, I’m not sure it matters much. We also don’t know if the family members ever moved back to El Salvador or whether this was also just a mistake insofar as there were other apparent mistakes of substituting Guatemala for El Salvador at times in the filings. So I’m just not sure what information would be useful to present to the reader based on the sources you’ve presented. Maybe if you stated exactly what sentences you would like to include in the article, that might be helpful. Then we could debate that proposed addition. Ideally there would be a source that clears up all this confusion but I doubt one is coming soon. Remember (talk) 12:04, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

The questions you raise about which and when family members were in Guatemala are very important questions. Those questions will not enter readers’ minds, however, if we exclude this well-sourced information. As I said above, the note that already mentions Guatemala should also include this quote: “the gang continued to harass the family after they moved to Guatemala, which borders El Salvador.” Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:26, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

What about the following for the footnote (with references to be added):

There have been some confusing statements related to Guatemala in the reporting related to the deportation. Some sources have reported that members of Abrego Garcia’s family continued to be harassed by gang members after they moved to Guatemala, which borders El Salvador. The Hill reported that "the immigration judge's order granted Abrego Garcia protection against removal, but referred a number of times to 'Guatemala' rather than El Salvador for reasons that are unclear." Regardless, the government never disputed that the withholding of removal order that was granted was for El Salvador and not Guatemala, stating in one court document that "ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador". Remember (talk) 17:14, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Thst proposed text would be an improvement, thanks. Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:54, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Unless there's a source commenting on reports in the media and saying something like "there have been confusing statements related to Guatemala in the reporting related to the deportation," I think that kind of text would be OR.

I still don't think it makes sense to include the AP statement, given that Sotomayor's quote from Jones' ruling implies that he was simply inattentive and wrote "Guatemala" when he meant "El Salvador," and since we only have one GREL source so far suggesting otherwise, rather than sources (plural) (it's a single Associated Press story by Ben Finley saying "The gang continued to harass the family after they moved to Guatemala, which borders El Salvador," republished by lots of other news outlets, but identified in those outlets as an AP story by Finley with the same text). There is a further problem that Jones made it clear that "family" did not include Abrego Garcia, writing in 2019 "At present ... Barrio 18 continues to harass and threaten the Respondent's two sisters and parents in Guatemala," whereas the AP story does not make it clear. My stance is that one GREL source saying something doesn't make it DUE and doesn't guarantee that they got the details right. We could take it to NPOVN to get some input from others. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:59, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Happy to have it taken to NPOVN. I don’t have strong feelings on this and mainly want to make sure that we provide the reader with clarifying comprehensive well-sourced info. Remember (talk) 19:10, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 April 2025

the Trump administration does not admit of mistakenly deporting Mr. Kilmar abrego garcial who is a documented illegal El Salvadorian alien, as clarified in numerous verbal accounts in youtube videos by President Trump and the deputy chief of staff Stephen miller. A recent and higher order court and jurisdiction level executive order has prompted the deportation of Mr. Garcial back to el salvador over a previous lower-level immigration ruling. 2A01:9700:3913:7300:68BD:7404:DB0C:A19C (talk) 14:52, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScrabbleTiles (talk) 14:57, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

The government stated in more than one of its court briefs that it mistakenly deported A.G. to El Salvador, and the government's statements were reported by multiple RSs. Trump and Miller can claim whatever they want while not under oath, but that doesn't change the fact of what the government wrote in its court briefs, which is what matters legally. And no, not a single court ruling "has prompted the deportation of Mr. Garcial back to el salvador over a previous lower-level immigration ruling." FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:07, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Illegally deported?

How do you illegally deport someone that is a citizen of another country? 63.133.226.182 (talk) 17:37, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

He had a judge's order that made it illegal to deport him to El Salvador. He could have been legally deported to a different country, but instead the government sent him to the one country they were legally forbidden to deport him to. As the Supreme Court said: "The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal." FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:47, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Then the title of the article and the descriptive text should not say “deported” which is a term for a legal process of removal; the term used should be Extraordinary rendition Fivey (talk) 21:18, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

When the article was named, there were no court rulings yet, and maybe the article will eventually be moved, but right now, RSs are referring to it as deportation. I don't think that Extraordinary rendition is correct either, since that's extraterritorial (country A abducts someone from country B and transports them to country C), whereas the US arrested him within the US (which is likely legal: his own lawyers said "Should Defendants wish to remove Plaintiff Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, the law sets forth specific procedures by which they can reopen the case and seek to set aside the grant of withholding of removal. Should Defendants wish to remove Plaintiff Abrego Garcia to any other country, they would have no legal impediment in doing so."), and it was the removal that's illegal. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:58, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Saying “according to the [publication]” and then a quote

There have been a couple of times people have added quotes from someone and then in the sentence attributed it to a publication. Like saying “according to the New York Times, Mr Johnson said “I think it’s a good idea”. To me this seems unnecessary and a bit of implied calling into question whether the reporting is accurate at all so I would just delete the reference to the publication and say “Mr Jones said …” But I wasn’t sure if Wikipedia had a specific guide on this or if people were providing attribution to the publication for some other reason I wasn’t aware. Just checking what is the proper protocol before I start removing the names of the publications. Remember (talk) 18:40, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Since no one responded, I’m going to remove references to the publications when I think they are extraneous. Happy to discuss if anyone disagrees. Remember (talk) 20:40, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I cited Huffington Post and The New Republic, both biased sources. WP:BIASED says that while we have to be neutral, reliable sources don't have to be, but attribution may be appropriate. I deemed them reliable for the undemanding job of giving us a printed source to cite for a direct quote of what a spokesperson said on video. I didn't think attributions were needed, but I tossed them in to keep the peace in case of any objections. Now that you've raised the issue, I've removed them. --Kizor 20:56, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. I could be wrong. If someone thinks we should add them back based on wiki policy, please let us know. Thank you for the help Kizor and for the additions of text! Remember (talk) 21:04, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Don't thank me if I add text, thank me if I know when to stop. But you're welcome. --Kizor 23:15, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Protective order mention

Hey should this protective order from 2021 be mentioned in the article? https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1912567112733753563 --Scoutstheman

Can you find a reliable source that mentions it? Remember (talk) 21:38, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Breaking news. After it was posted by DHS on twitter a few hours ago, news outlets are indeed are covering them posting it.

Newsweek Washington Examiner and I assume a bunch more sources will have coverage of it soon. Seems we should cover it, the question is where and how?

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 21:44, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

My inclination is to put it in the Reactions / Trump administration section. It's part of their public argument, but unless they introduce it into their court filings, it's not legally relevant. That section should probably be enlarged a bit anyway, per NPOV. They've made all sorts of claims (that he engaged in human trafficking, ...). FactOrOpinion (talk) 22:02, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I like that idea of it being under the trump administration reactions but if it does become some kind of legal evidence against him I'd suggest considering moving it to the background section alongside his alleged MS-13 connection. Given that both would be used against him I think it would make sense for them to be both located in the same section. Scoutstheman (talk) 03:25, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I think that when we consider adding it, we need to be sure to keep in mind Wikipedia:BLP policy and be very careful with the language used if we do. I agree with FactOrOpinion in that its place would be under reactions (as it is irrelevant to the deportation itself as of now) if it is included. Mason7512 (talk) 22:05, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

It definitely feels like a smear campaign not a legal argument. I agree the reactions section is appropriate.

Also, see the Newsweek article. Maybe we should also include part of the response/rebuttal from his wife. Bob drobbs (talk) 22:16, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree if we include the information we should include the statement from his wife regarding the issue. Remember (talk) 22:50, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I also agree and went ahead and made the addition to the reactions section. Nowa (talk) 23:36, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

A new 4th Circuit appeal

The Trump Admin. has filed a notice of appeal with the 4th Circuit, to appeal Xinis's 4/10 order (the one she wrote right after SCOTUS ruled). It has a different docket #, but I'm not a lawyer and don't know why. I assume that it will be assigned to a different panel of judges. Just noting this as a heads up, since it means another legal element to attend to (keeping track of filings, figuring out how to name the section and where to place it). FactOrOpinion (talk) 22:18, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

They filed a motion for (1) an emergency stay pending appeal of Xinis's 4/10 amended order that they facilitate A.G.'s release/return, and (2) a writ of mandamus to vacate her 4/15 order for expedited discovery (and I need to add content about that order). The motion was filed yesterday, and they filed a concurrent motion in the district court, asking Xinis to stay her orders pending appeal. Xinis denied their motion today; I haven't seen news about either that motion or her denial yet, so I haven't added anything to the article about it yet. The 4th Circuit also denied their motion, in a unanimous opinion described by The Hill as a "blistering". For the time being, I've added a few sentences about the 4th Circuit's ruling at the end of the Return to Maryland district court subsection in the "Facilitating" his return section, but I'm not sure that's the right place. Clearly the 4th Circuit is not the district court. But it wasn't clear to me where to add something like a Return to Fourth Circuit subsection, or how to deal with the fact that it was a concurrent motion to both the district court and the 4th Circuit. Should I add a Return to Fourth Circuit subsection at the bottom of "Facilitating" his return? I don't know what will best help readers understand all of this back-and-forth. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:29, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Others didn't like this idea in the past. But there is so much going on in parallel in different courts, I'm again going to propose the idea of organizing the legal cases/ruling by court not trying to keep things across multiple courts in chronological order.

It makes sense to me. 🤷‍♂️

Though, maybe at some point to add to that there could be a bulleted timeline? Bob drobbs (talk) 21:34, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it's too confusing if it's not chronological. Another possibility would be to retitle the Return to Maryland district court section Return to the lower courts for right now, and we can see how it plays out. Unless the DOJ appeals to SCOTUS and they grant an emergency stay (which hopefully they wouldn't, given their previous order), it will continue to proceed in the district court for the next week and a half. A bulleted timeline might be useful; we'd need to decide what year the timeline starts. FactOrOpinion (talk) 22:54, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 April 2025 (2)

Underneath the “background” section, “they would make sure her eldest son, Cesar, joined their gang instead,” change “joined” to join. 166.181.80.247 (talk) 22:48, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

 Done thank you for catching that! Mason7512 (talk) 22:50, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Missing comma?

Extremely minor, but the article is protected. In the Refusal section, it currently says the following: According to the administration the Supreme Court's requirement to[...]. I believe there should be a comma after "administration", as in According to the administration, the [...]. Thank you for your understanding. 2600:1700:6181:899F:A46B:20C3:75BD:A2A7 (talk) 03:29, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for noticing / pointing it out. FactOrOpinion (talk) 04:00, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Misinformation section

Can we create a separate section for all the misinformation spread by trump and his sycophants, that has since been debunked (gang membership, restraining order, etc)? 46.97.170.73 (talk) 12:00, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I’m not necessarily opposed to such a section but it would be useful if we had sources documenting this as a trend. I’ve seen this in Rolling Stone (link) but unfortunately Rolling Stone is not considered a reliable source for a lot of things. Do we have other sources to support a section on this? Remember (talk) 12:18, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

It's all in the article already, but scattered across multiple sections. It would be more helpful if it were all in the same place. Most people coming to this article will probably do so because they heard the false claims circulating and will want to verify them. 46.97.170.73 (talk) 15:58, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

What misinformation? He was noted to be a gang member by a detective, the Gang Unit, and a confidential informant. Furthermore, two immigration judges agreed with this assessment. How is that misinformation? Also, there is no doubt that there were two restraining orders filed against him by his current wife. That's 100% verifiable. So I don't know what misinformation you're talking about? Mkstokes (talk) 16:57, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I mean there have been a variety of false and misleading statements at times. JD Vance for example stated that he was “convicted” when that never happened. Trump asserted that he “won” the case 9-0. Some people have asserted or implied that the courts actual adjudicated whether he was a gang member when that was only something that was used for a quick bail determination that is not the same thing as an actual tried fact. So there are things that could be discussed. But I think it would be best to lean on a reliable source rather than compile the information ourselves. Remember (talk) 17:20, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Immigration is a civil case, not criminal. Thus the burden of proof is much lower and the process is different. Your reference to a "tried fact" doesn't apply. As a civil case, the Immigration Judge said he was MS-13 and when it was appealed, that judgement was upheld. That's the end of it from a due process standpoint, period. Mkstokes (talk) 18:18, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

AFAIK, there's zero evidence of the arresting officer working with a "gang unit." The first immigration judge, who accepted the allegation of his being a gang member, was only assessing it for whether he was eligible for bail (no trial, the standards of evidence are lower than in a trial, and there was no opportunity to question the police officer who made the claim because that officer was suspended and pleaded guilty to misconduct shortly after), and the appeals court did not assess it, only whether the first judge made a "clear error." There was only one restraining order filed by his wife, and she chose not to press charges. Misinformation includes things like: zero evidence that "he was found with rolls of cash and drugs," zero evidence that "Intelligence reports found that he was involved in human trafficking," zero evidence for Bondi's claim that he's "one of the top MS-13 members." He's never been charged with any crime in the US or El Salvador. Ask yourself: if he's a top MS-13 member, why didn't the Trump Admin. challenge the withholding of removal order in 2019 and have him deported then? But I agree with Remember, we'd only create a specific misinformation section if RSs are characterizing the info that way. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:24, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Wrong, there is no "trial" in the traditional sense. Once again, this is a civil case, not a criminal one. Think traffic court or divorce court. The judge makes a decision and that's it. Also, the report provided by the detective is called a GFIS, which means Gang Field Interview Sheet. Of course the Gang Unit gave him the information to complete it! There were two TROs, not one. When you say "zero evidence" i don't think you understand the nature of legal evidence. Verbal testimony is evidence, so saying "zero" is just wrong from a legal standpoint. Him hanging out woth known gamg members is evidence (circumstantial evidence). Having a car full of people with zero luggage is evidence (circumstantial). Pretending to not speak English is evidence. No offense, but your understanding of the legal process is lacking. Mkstokes (talk) 18:29, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Nothing I said was wrong. It's true that there was no trial, because it was a bond hearing. (And for the record, there are often trials in civil cases.) It's true that in a bond hearing, the standards of evidence are lower than in a trial, including a civil trial. In an immigration court bond hearing, the burden of proof is on the immigrant. I know what GFIS stands for, thanks, which does not make the cops part of a "gang unit." As the GFIS says, the men were picked up for loitering.

As for "There were two TROs, not one," I have no idea which case you're referring to, but if you can present the two TROs you're referring to, I'll look at them. I'm aware that "Verbal testimony is evidence," but testimony occurs in court or a deposition, under oath. A GFIS is not testimony. And if you bothered to read the GFIS, you'd find that it did not say "he was found with rolls of cash and drugs," nor "Intelligence reports found that he was involved in human trafficking," nor has Bondi provided evidence for her claim that he's "one of the top MS-13 members," which were my claims, so don't try to move the goalposts to things I did not make a claim about. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:28, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

"His attorney also contacted the [Prince George’s Police Department] 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."

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/abrego-garcia-and-ms-13--what-do-we-know Mkstokes (talk) 21:26, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

DHS website

DHS has now put out a “fact sheet” on Abrego Garcia. See here - [4]. This seems notable to mention in the article but not exactly sure how. Remember (talk) 13:28, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think we should cite it directly, only in terms of what RSs say about it. I found one discussion, and I assume that there are (or will be) others. I'd put this in the Reactions / Trump admin. section, or maybe there needs to be a new subsection about this playing out not only in a court of law but also in the court of public opinion. As an aside, they should be ashamed to have redacted police officer names while not doing so for family addresses and a minor child's name. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:11, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

A mention of the post has already been added to the article in § Trump administration, and I added a citation to the post itself at the end. That section doesn't cover all the info in the "fact sheet" though. — W.andrea (talk) 14:17, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I just removed the DHS citation, as that webpage is full of court documents. WP:BLPPRIMARY says Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. If RSs consider the information there to be significant, they'll report on it. FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:04, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

They already have reported on it... WP:BLPPRIMARY also says Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source. I'm fine whether it's cited or not, just want to understand what you're saying. — W.andrea (talk) 15:58, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

We can use the RSs reporting on it. But we cannot use court documents as primary sources for BLP content, ever. You cut off the sentence you just quoted: Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies. "Subject to the restrictions of this policy" means that if some other part of the BLP policy says "don't use this kind of source for BLP content," it cannot be used, notwithstanding that primary sources can sometimes be used in limited ways. In particular, "subject to the restrictions of this policy" includes "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person." FactOrOpinion (talk) 16:30, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh OK. I took the citation to be supporting the assertion about the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security posted ... but I understand disallowing it because it contains court records (as well as personal details). And I guess it could also be understood as supporting the assertions about Abrego Garcia and his wife, which we don't want. — W.andrea (talk) 21:21, 17 April 2025 (UTC) edited 21:23

Please explain how one can "augument" a secondary source after that "reliable secondary source" has discussed the court document? What you've made an argument for it that primary source information can NEVER be used on a WP:BLP, when it clearly says it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source. Why would the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons page say it "may" be used when you assert it can NEVER be used. It's simple. You can cite both the secondary source's article AND the primary source info discussed in said article if the article also discusses the primary source materials. What could be clearer than that? Why even put in "may" when in practice it means NEVER. Mkstokes (talk) 17:15, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I already responded to this very issue in the comment just above yours, which I encourage you to read and understand. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:30, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

The WP:USEPRIMARY guidelines say

An article about a person: The person's autobiography, own website, or a page about the person on an employer's or publisher's website, is an acceptable (although possibly incomplete) primary‡ source for information about what the person says about themself. Such primary sources can normally be used for non-controversial facts about the person and for clearly attributed controversial statements. Many other primary sources, including birth certificates, the Social Security Death Index, and court documents, are ""USUALLY"" not acceptable primary sources, because it is impossible for the viewer to know whether the person listed on the document is the notable subject rather than another person who happens to have the same name.

So, clearly, primary source can sometimes be used as opposed to ""NEVER."" Are you asserting that the court documents might not be for the Abrego Garcia and all the news sources citing them are mistaken? Note it says ""USUALLY,"" not never. So your explanation is grossly insufficient. Mkstokes (talk) 17:50, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

clearly, primary source can sometimes be used as opposed to ""NEVER."" I know! Which is why I never suggested that primary sources can never be used. You seem confused. My statement was that court documents cannot ever be used. There are many, many kinds of primary sources that are not court documents, and sometimes those other primary sources can be used. Are you asserting that the court documents might not be for the Abrego Garcia They cannot be used as sources for WP content. all the news sources citing them are mistaken I said nothing about news sources, and they're irrelevant here, since news sources aren't court documents. Since you aren't willing to attend to relevant distinctions, I'm done here. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:35, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

You're not reading the guidelines. WP:USEPRIMARY specifically mentions ""court documents."" I'll repeat. It says Many other primary sources, including birth certificates, the Social Security Death Index, and ""COURT DOCUMENTS,"" are ""USUALLY"" not acceptable primary sources. Usually does not mean ""NEVER"" in any form or fashion in this universe, period. You're the one not willing to attend to relevant distinctions. Come to think of it, this shouldn't be a biography of a living person anyway! Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not a living person, so none of the WP:BLP should apply. But Wikipedia has decided it does. 🤦🏾‍♂️ Mkstokes (talk) 20:30, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not a living person

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a living person. Please read WP:BLP more closely, e.g. Material about living persons, information about living persons, and This policy applies to ... material about living persons in other articles. In other words, it's not only about biographies per se – that's just the main area where it's applicable. — W.andrea (talk) 23:25, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, @W.andrea, I understand Wikipedia's policy for designation this a BLP. I just disagree with it. My real concern is @FactOrOpinion's clear bias. When that user says "They're distorting what little evidence they do have. It's all a public relations campaign," or says "That DHS page only shows how little evidence they have of gang membership," the make clear their bias against including DHS evidence in the article. So I'm not surprised when the ignore Wikipedia crystal clear policy stating primary source materials "MAY be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source." Tney don't like what that evidence provide, so they've made a decision to exclude is because they think it's wrong. The purpose of authoring a Wikipedia article is not to create an opinion piece. It's to provide the information as is and let the reader decide on their own. That's also why the Supreme Court document saying the government action was illegal should be included as well. Why someone wouldn't want is beyond me and using Wikipedia Lawyering to exclude the stuff you don't like is unacceptable. 🤬 Mkstokes (talk) 08:52, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

#1 on that fact sheet confuses Abrego Garcia being found with rolls of cash with being found with a sweatshirt that had pictures of roles [sic] of money on it. According to the Gang Field Interview Sheet that the fact sheet is using as a source, and which Pam Bondi's office published yesterday, Abrego Garcia was one of four people arrested for loitering outside of a Home Depot, when approached two of them discarded items and small plastic bottles containing marijuana were found at the scene, and Abrego Garcia was wearing a "Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents on the separate denominations." (The GFIS states that See no evil hear no evil speak no evil is indicative of Hispanic gang culture.) The fact sheet's accusation that "he was found with rolls of cash and drugs" is untrue. I'm peeved and tempted to remove the fact sheet as an unreliable, poor-quality source per WP:BLP, but would that be the right thing to do or would it just feel good? --Kizor 14:52, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I already removed the source, as I don't think it's consistent with the prohibition against using court docs for BLP content. That GFIS is the one submitted by the cop who was suspended a couple of weeks later and then pleaded guilty to sharing confidential info with a sex worker. It's ludicrous for DHS to suggest that he was arrested with drugs when the police didn't charge him with anything related to drugs; are they suggesting dereliction of duty? A "Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents on the separate denominations" doesn't even make sense to me. Was the officer saying that images of bills were sewn onto the hoodie, and then images of rolls of money were sewn over the eyes, ears and mouths of the images of the presidents in those bills? How could actual rolls of money cover the eyes, ears and mouths of images of presidents, whether sewn images or the images on actual bills? That DHS page only shows how little evidence they have of gang membership. That GFIS sheet says he had "chequeo" status, which is a fairly low MS-13 status, despite Bondi's claim that he's "one of the top MS-13 members." They're distorting what little evidence they do have. It's all a public relations campaign. FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:26, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

All this analysis looks like original research. You're making a biased analysis of the facts, then using that analysis to determine if something should or shouldn't be added or published. Your opinion of the EVIDENCE is immaterial. Mkstokes (talk) 19:21, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 April 2025

He was not illegally deported. He is a citizen of El Salvador and illegally entered the United States under his own admission. The president and DOJ are working well within their means. First source: DOJ fact sheet.

https://www.justice.gov/d9/speeches/attachments/2017/04/18/department_of_justice_fact_sheet_on_ms-13_0.pdf

Second source: Prince county gang field interview sheet, Department of Homeland Security Record of deportable/inadmissible alien and DOJ board of immigration appeals review.

https://www.justice.gov/ag/media/1396906/dl?inline 12.42.84.242 (talk) 15:54, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

This is already addressed in the article and multiple times on this talk page. Neither of the sources prove what you say nor are sufficient for direct citation per WP:BLPPRIMARY. As FactOrOpinion put it in a previous talk page disscussion:

He had a judge's order that made it illegal to deport him to El Salvador. He could have been legally deported to a different country, but instead the government sent him to the one country they were legally forbidden to deport him to. As the Supreme Court said: "The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal."

Mason7512 (talk) 16:17, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

This statement is patently false, @Mason7512. The burden of proof for a civil case is "the preponderance of the evidence," the lowest legal standard possible. Thus, given that multiple sources provided evidence of his MS-13 membership and two immigration judges determined it was acceptable, that is clearly sufficient in a civil case. There should be no reason why someone cannot cite both an article from a reliable source that discusses the primary documentation and the primary documentation as support for the article. This is the clear meaning of "Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source." I can't think of any other way to AUGMENT a source when that source discusses a primary legal document. Can you? Sorry, @FactOrOpinion is just wrong in his assessment of this policy, period. Mkstokes (talk) 17:24, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

The burden of proof in [some] civil cases is not relevant in this context unless. It is not your place to determine if a burden of proof is met (for what, you do not specify) and assert your determination as fact. That is clear original research.

There are not multiple sources that provide "evidence of his MS-13 membership", there is testimony by one informant and claims by government/law enforcement entities citing this testimony.

Two immigration judges didn't determine the testimony was “acceptable” (which is not a legal term, so I don't know what you're referring to). An immigration judge ruled that the testimony was sufficient grounds to deny him bail, and another agreed with that decision upon appeal.

None of this shows that RSs support what the original IP claimed, which was that he was in the US illegally at the time of deportation and the government was "working well within their means". Reliable sources, in fact, say the opposite. Mason7512 (talk) 17:43, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay, here's a legal term. The court said "...the evidence shows that he is a verified member of MS-13." Also, "The BIA has held, absent any indication that the information therein is incorrect or was the result of coercion or duress, Form I-213, is "inherently trustworthy and admissible." Anything else is original research on your part, end of story. You disagree with the judge. Fine. So does the defense counsel and the defendant. That doesn't make it untrue and certain doesn't block it from being published in a Wikipedia article merely because you thought the process was wrong. Stick to the facts and not your original research. Mkstokes (talk) 19:38, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. Please wait to reopen this edit request until a consensus has been reached. PianoDan (talk) 17:55, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 April 2025 (2)

It says he was deported illegally, this should state he was deported legally. 2600:1009:B129:8E66:D1E7:9BB2:CE9A:1C5A (talk) 16:40, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

If you read the article you would see that the Supreme Court found the deportation to be illegal and even the government asserted in its case that it was incorrect and why they referred to it as an “administrative error.” Remember (talk) 17:23, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template. PianoDan (talk) 17:56, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

False or misleading statements in this article

Notably, the officer and lead detective who attested to his gang membership was suspended during the investigation due to serious misconduct allegations.

This implies the misconduct was related to Kilmar's case. It wasn't, as the source makes clear. This is misleading.

His lawyers argue that his imprisonment is part of an agreement to detain U.S. deportees there in exchange for payment, a claim that was confirmed by U.S. senator Chris Van Hollen, who had spoken with Félix Ulloa, El Salvador's vice president.

The source does not say that Senator Van Hollen "confirmed" anything, just that he said something. This is misleading.

On April 10, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Abrego Garcia's removal to El Salvador was illegal. The Court rejected the administration's defense, which claimed it lacked the legal authority to exercise jurisdiction over El Salvador and secure his return. Justice Sotomayor noted that this argument implied the government "could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene."

This implies Sotomayor made this statement in a controlling decision. She actually made this argument in a dissenting opinion. This is misleading.

A few months after his marriage, Abrego Garcia applied for asylum and withholding of removal. His request for asylum was denied, as one must submit an asylum application within a year of arriving in the U.S.

The article says "He applied for asylum, but that option is only available to those who have been in the U.S. around a year." The source says "around a year". It's not an editor's job to change that to "less than a year". "Around a year" certainly inspires less confidence than "less than a year", which is more definitive. Editing away ambiguity in a source makes it sound more authoritative and is therefore misleading.

§ Meaning of withholding of removal

This entire section with the exception of the sentence: Reuters and NPR describe Abrego Garcia, having received the status, as living in the U.S. legally. is original research and requires a secondary source describing the primary sources.

On March 12, 2025, after working at his job as a union apprentice, Abrego Garcia picked his son up from his grandmother's house. His son, who was five years old at the time, has "autism and a hearing defect, and is unable to communicate verbally." After leaving the house, ICE officials stopped his car, told him that his immigration "status had changed",

The cited source says exactly none of this.

On April 4, 2025, Judge Paula Xinis ruled that his detention, without any kind of judicial documentation warranting it, was illegal

In the cited source, the judge says that his deportation was illegal. The cited source does not include any statement from the judge about the legality of El Salvador imprisoning him, which makes sense, given that El Salvador is a foreign country with its own laws.

I'll just leave it at that because I'm running short of time, but at this rate, I expect the entire article to be filled with misleading statements, false statements, and original research not supported by citations. 199.189.228.86 (talk) 17:06, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

FYI- Sotamayor’s statements were not a “dissent”. It was simply stated in the document as a separate statement, which is what it says in the article. It agreed with the decision of the case and thus wouldn’t be dissenting. Remember (talk) 17:27, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Also for the text:

On March 12, 2025, after working at his job as a union apprentice, Abrego Garcia picked his son up from his grandmother's house. His son, who was five years old at the time, has "autism and a hearing defect, and is unable to communicate verbally." After leaving the house, ICE officials stopped his car, told him that his immigration "status had changed".

I added back the original sources which for some unknown reason were previously removed. Thank you for finding that. I don’t have time right now to respond to all other complaints but I’ll try to address them when I can (unless someone addresses them before me). Remember (talk) 17:45, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I will be working on them as well. Nowa (talk) 17:57, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Re: Sotomayor opinion.

The cited source discusses both cases simultaneously. Not to do original research, but the article doesn't make things clear. In Noem v Garcia, Sotomayor, joined by Kagan and Jackson quoted herself from a prior dissent in J. G. G:

The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene. See Trump v. J. G. G., 604 U. S. ___, ___ (2025) (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 8). That view refutes itself.

Describe that how you wish. But the two options are: it's from a dissent in Trump v J. G. G., not Garcia, or its a quote from the dissent in Trump v J. G. G., included in a 3 member statement in the unsigned Noem v Garcia. Either way, the article as written implies that her statement is part of a unanimous opinion, which it is not. Indeed, she dissents in writing in her statement:

Because every factor governing requests for equitable relief manifestly weighs against the Government, Nken v. Holder, 556 U. S. 418, 426 (2009), I would have declined to intervene in this litigation and denied the application in full. Nevertheless, I agree with the Court’s order that the proper remedy is to provide Abrego Garcia with all the process to which he would have been entitled had he not been unlawfully removed to El Salvador.

But again, any of this is only necessary because the source is ambiguous. I don't really care about this, but as a reader without background knowledge, I would not understand any of this by reading this article. 199.189.228.86 (talk) 20:34, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Statement about the officer in the lead

The IP user above makes the following observation regarding content in the lead:

"Notably, the officer and lead detective who attested to his gang membership was suspended during the investigation due to serious misconduct allegations." [current wording is slightly different]

This implies the misconduct was related to Kilmar's case. It wasn't, as the source makes clear. This is misleading.

I agree that the statement is misleading and should be removed. The source [5] is The New Republic. Wikipedia consensus is that The New Republic (TNR) is reliable but opinionated. All opinions TNR should be attributed. Based on that, the statement should certainly be removed from the lead. It could be argued that it belongs in the background as an opinion of TNR with attribution, but we then run into a wp:blp problem regarding the officer in question. The New Republic names the officer and casts aspersions on the officer's character for an incident unrelated to Garcia (i.e., giving confidential case information to a prostitute). So the bottom line is that I agree with the IP user that the statement is misleading and should be removed. If I can get a second, I will remove it, or, if there is an alternative view, let's discuss. Nowa (talk) 21:57, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I think there are lots of other sources which talk about this officer's "disgrace" like this USA Today Article.

I agree this has no place in the lead, but I think it should remain in the article. And, we cannot be the ones who make a connection that the cop who labeled Garcia as a gang member was later fired for bad behavior. But reliable secondary sources are making this connection so we can too, I think we should.

USA Today: "Just days after the March 2019 encounter at a Home Depot in Hyattsville where Abrego Garcia was flagged as a potential MS-13 gang member, Mendez was suspended from the force.

"-- Bob drobbs (talk) Bob drobbs (talk) 22:04, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Much better reference that lays out the situation. I concur that a statement in the background section based on the USA today article is appropriate. Nowa (talk) 23:01, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Although the cause of the suspension and guilty plea are unrelated to Abrego Garcia's arrest, it's relevant to the bond ruling, in that that the officer who completed the GFIS was unavailable to answer questions:

Abrego Garcia’s lawyer later tried to obtain more information about the allegations ICE had made at the bail hearing, according to the complaint. He discovered that the Prince George’s Police Department had no incident report for the arrest, and the Hyattsville City Police Department’s report mentioned only the other three men arrested—not Abrego Garcia.

Then the complaint adds yet another disturbing detail: "His attorney also contacted the [Prince George’s Police Department] 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."

(source) Agreed that it doesn't belong in the lead. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:35, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

"Impractical" vs "impracticable"

The article from The Hill states that the administration's response to the judge's timeline was "impracticable" but this article uses the word "impractical." It's my understanding that "impracticable" is a legal term that means that something cannot be done vs "impractical" which just means that something is not reasonable. It might seem like a minor correction but I think it's worth making. 98.149.220.178 (talk) 19:08, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Which article from The Hill? Currently the only mention of "Impractical" that I see in the article comes from a PBS article and seems to be quoted from the article correctly. -- Bob drobbs (talk) Bob drobbs (talk) 21:37, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Dedicated section for CECOT

I copied over a bunch of stuff about conditions at the prison from March 2025 American deportations of Venezuelans and stuck it into a new section near the bottom of the article. I left the overview at the "Arrest and deportation in 2025" section in place. We don't want to ruin the article's flow by dropping an infodumping brick in the middle of telling the reader what happened, but we also don't want to swish away important information to the bottom.

Drawbacks? Problems? Was this a mistake? Is this beside the subject? Is the article getting too long? The article on the deportations of Venezuelans has a lot of details on proposals to detain Americans as well, and those could be brought over. --Kizor 04:05, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 talk 17:17, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Kilmer Armado Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March 2025 due to an "administrative error" by the U.S. government?

• Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ice-admits-administrative-error-after-maryland-man-el/story?id=120359991

• Reviewed:

Created by Hobit (talk) and Remember (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.

Hobit (talk) 01:51, 2 April 2025 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ:
Overall: Article new and long enough. Passes earwig, no close paraphrasing was found, and the hook is interesting, cited inline, and verified. QPQ not done. Get QPQ done before I can give final approval. And also, insert the citation which you used for the article's nomination within the article as that is also missing. Toadboy123 (talk) 14:25, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

@Toadboy123: @Hobit: appears to have fewer than five nominations.--Launchballer 15:29, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

@Toadboy123: The link is in the article--it is currently the first link (found in the lede). And, as noted, this is my first nom (as far as I can recall) so I don't think the QPQ is required. Once I get through this process I will probably do some DYK reviews (though not until the semester is done, life is crazy right now). Hobit (talk) 22:11, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I did a recheck again and citation is in the lede. Apologies from my side regarding the QPQ request. Article is good to go. Toadboy123 (talk) 12:05, 8 April 2025 (UTC)