Panelists on “Morning Joe” spent over seven minutes Thursday trying to dismiss evidence in a dossier released by the Department of Justice against an alleged MS-13 gang member deported to El Salvador.
The Trump administration released the 13-page dossier detailing the evidence against Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Wednesday. “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski and panelists John Heilemann and Pablo Torre dismissed the contents of the dossier, which included rulings from immigration judges determining Abrego Garcia was a member of the El Salvadoran prison gang.
READ: CNN’s Harry Enten Breaks Down Drastic Reversal In Trump’s Approval Ratings On Immigration
“Officials say he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat. It’s about basketball, but a baseball hat and a hoodie with markings that were allegedly indicative of Hispanic gang culture and symbolizes a, quote member in good standing,” Brzezinski said. “At the time of his arrest, Abrego Garcia had no criminal history. The Department of Homeland Security also released records that said he was detained in connection to a 2019 murder investigation. Abrego Garcia denied he was ever involved and was never charged.”
Abrego Garcia was detained in 2022 by the Tennessee Highway Patrol on suspicion of human trafficking but was released at the behest of the Biden FBI, according to the Tennessee Star.
“What Trump TV, as you put it, is doing, is asking you to look at an inkblot test and they’re saying, what do you see? Here are the details,” Torre said. “Here’s a man never charged with a crime, but he’s had problems in his marriage. But he was found in this parking lot with alleged gang-affiliated caps, hoodies, that stuff. And what I want to make clear is that you actually don’t need to respect Kilmar Abrego Garcia as a man in order to come to a clear conclusion on this matter. It’s whether you respect the law, right?”
President Donald Trump issued several executive orders to address illegal immigration and border security, including designating Mexican drug cartels, the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) and MS-13 as foreign terrorist organizations upon taking office on Jan. 20 as well as invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to speed up the deportation of gang members on March 15.
“I would say there are a lot of Americans who, in the abstract, do not care about due process,” Heilemann said. “There are a lot of Americans who are fine with the notion if they are, if all they’re presented with is the notion of bad guy, gang member, criminal… they don’t particularly mind.”
According to the dossier, Abrego Garcia entered the United States illegally in 2011 and was adjudicated to be a member of MS-13 by immigration courts in 2019.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
