‘This Is Literally Fake News:’ JD Vance Hammered For Claiming Wrongly Imprisoned Migrant Is ‘Convicted’ Gang Member

AP Photo/Matt York

Vice President JD Vance sparked an avalanche of criticism on Tuesday when he wrongly claimed that a migrant from Maryland who had court-granted “protected status” in the United States was “a convicted MS-13 gang member” and therefore deserved to be imprisoned in El Salvador with no right of appeal.

Vance made the comments after it was revealed ICE admitted the deportation and subsequent imprisonment was an “administrative error” for which the government has no recourse. The Trump administration, however, continues to claim the deported migrant is tied to MS-13.

The Atlantic’s Nick Miroff reported the bombshell news on Monday night, “The Trump administration acknowledged in a court filing Monday that it had grabbed a Maryland father with protected legal status and mistakenly deported him to El Salvador, but said that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to order his return from the megaprison where he’s now locked up.”

Liberal podcast host Jon Favreau shared the story and wrote, “You just admitted to accidentally sending an innocent father from Maryland to a torture dungeon in El Salvador. And you refuse to do anything about it.” Favreau also tagged Vance and asked if he had any comment.

Vance replied, “My comment is that according to the court document you apparently didn’t read he was a convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here.”

“My further comment is that it’s gross to get fired up about gang members getting deported while ignoring citizens they victimize,” Vance added.

Former immigration lawyer Aaron Reichlin-Melnick replied to Vance, noting, “Vance is badly wrong here. In 2019, a police informant alleged the guy was in MS-13. He spent a year in ICE detention as a result, then won his case. He’s been out for the last five years, married to a U.S. citizen, has two kids, and STILL has no criminal record at all.”

Politico’s Kyle Cheney added, “Vance here, mocking Favreau for not reading the court filing, says the deported man was a ‘convicted’ gang member. The court filing does not say that. It says he was denied bond in 2019 over an informant’s claim he was in MS-13. That’s not a conviction.”

Vance went a step further and replied to Cheney, noting that the migrant named Kilmar Abrego Garcia, had traffic tickets in the past. Vance wrote:

Kyle Cheney, a “legal affairs reporter” is apparently unable or unwilling to look at the facts here.
In 2019, an Immigration Judge (under the first Trump administration) determined that the deported man was, in fact, a member of the MS-13 gang. He also apparently had multiple traffic violations for which he failed to appear in court. A real winner.

It is telling that the entire American media is going to run a propaganda operation today making you think an innocent “father of 3” was apprehended by a gulag. Here are the relevant facts:

1) The man is an illegal immigrant with no right to be in our country.
2) An immigration judge determined he was a member of the MS-13 gang.
3) Because he is not a citizen, he does not get a full jury trial by peers. In other words, whatever “due process” he was entitled to, he received.

Journalist Ronan Farrow replied to Vance as well, “JD Vance holds a JD from Yale Law (and so do I). Presumably, he knows that he is disregarding the law here, and being deceptive about the protections it affords.” Farrow added:

Non-citizens physically present in the United States, regardless of their immigration status, are entitled to due process protections under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. It is not relevant whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia is sympathetic, or how much you believe an (apparently shaky) claim from an informant that he had gang connections. The disposition of this case, based on a judge’s review of the facts, was to grant Abrego Garcia protected legal status, preventing his deportation. Abrego Garcia’s due process rights, under the law, required the government to go back to immigration court and make the case, if they wanted to terminate that protected status. There is no good faith legal reading in which his right to due process was respected; indeed, the government has conceded that it erred, and is essentially arguing that it doesn’t matter enough to address it. This is because they assume people will not care. But everyone in the United States should care—we all depend on these basic legal rights being predictably upheld.

Reason’s Billy Binion also hammered Vance for his flubbing of the law in defense of sending a man to indefinite prison in a foreign country:

This is literally fake news. JD Vance didn’t read the court documents.
Here is what they actually say.

Abrego Garcia is not a “convicted gang member.” He’s never been charged or convicted of *any* crime. Police accused him of being MS-13 after stopping him and 3 other men for allegedly loitering outside a Home Depot, where he says he’d gone to apply for a job. It was his first and only time in state custody.

Law encorcement separated the men and interrogated them about gang membership. They told Abrego Garcia he could leave if he gave them information, which he said he didn’t have.

One of the other men pointed the finger at Abrego Garcia and accused him of being affiliated with part of a gang that operates in New York, where he’s never lived. That—along with the fact that he was wearing *a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie*—is the “evidence” law enforcement said showed he was in a gang.

When his lawyer went to find the police report for the Home Depot incident, Abrego Garcia wasn’t even named on it. And what about the subsequent gang evaluation? The investigator who authored it was suspended.

Below are some more reactions to Vance’s tweets:

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