‘Zero Criminal Convictions’: Jake Tapper Fact Checks Trump AG On Justification For Indefinitely Imprisoning Man In El Salvador

CNN anchor Jake Tapper fact-checked Trump Attorney General Pam Bondi, aide Stephen Miller, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after they took turns on Monday defending the indefinite imprisonment of a migrant in El Salvador despite the Supreme Court ruling they need to “facilitate” his return.

Tapper played a quick mash-up of some of their remarks. “He was illegally in our country, he had been illegally in our country, and in 2019, two courts, an immigration court and an appellate immigration court ruled that he was a member of MS-13 and he was illegally in our country,” insisted Bondi.

“No version of this legally ends up with him ever living here because he is a citizen of El Salvador,” Miller added.

“I don’t understand what the confusion is. This individual is a citizen of El Salvador. He was illegally in the United States and was returned to his country,” Rubio said.

Tapper then added, “Now just a quick fact check on some of this and some important background on Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen. He has one child with her and two stepchildren.”

“It is true that Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador, and it is true that he entered the United States illegally sometime around 2011. His attorneys say that he was initially fleeing gang violence in El Salvador. As for the allegation that he’s a member of MS-13, which he fervently denies, well, the evidence of that is much more flimsy,” Tapper continued, adding:

According to court documents, Garcia and three other men were arrested in 2019. He was asked if he was a gang member. He said no. Garcia had been deemed a gang members by the Prince George’s County Police Department in part because he was at the time wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie and a confidential informant claimed that Garcia was an active member of MS-13, although he denied that at the time.

Now, later that year, an immigration judge granted Garcia protective status, allowing him to stay in the United States legally, finding that even though Garcia was liable for deportation because he was in the country illegally, he should be protected from deportation, the judge said, to El Salvador because that would constitute a danger to him.

Here we are six years later, despite that protective order, and despite zero criminal convictions, Garcia is now back in El Salvador, and not just El Salvador in a notorious prison there. And while Trump’s officials claim and admit, rather, that it was an oversight that he was deported to begin with, they’re still clinging to this rather shoddily proven claim that he is, without question, an MS-13 member. And they’re doing that to justify the fact that he’s sitting in this prison in El Salvador.

Watch the clip above via CNN.