WorldNetDaily joined the Media Research Center in misrepresenting the story of wrongly deported undocumented immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The headline of an April 13 article by Joe Kovacs asserted that Abrego Garcia was an “MS-13 gangster” despite a lack of evidence to back up that claim; in the article itself, Kovacs called him “a suspected member of the MS-13 gang,” though he uncritically allowed El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to call him a “terrorist.”
Bob Unruh pushed the unsubstantiated MS-13 claim in an April 15 article:
In another high-profile deportation case, that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported even though he had a protective order aimed at preventing his deportation to El Salvador, the fight continues as the Supreme Court has ordered the government to facilitate his return, without explaining that requirement.
Further, El Salvado’s [sic] president said that will not happen, leaving a multitude of questions about how an administration is supposed to enter a foreign country and take back to the United States a prisoner the government there is unwilling to give up.
[…]Reports reveal he entered the U.S. illegally in 2011 and has been described in court documents as a past member of the violent MS-13 gang, a declared terrorist group.
Unruh pushed another dubious claim about Abrego Garcia in an April 17 article:
Democrats have chosen to fight President Donald Trump to have returned to the United States an illegal alien who was deported to a prison in El Salvador.
The El Salvadoran president has confirmed the inmate is not being released or returned to the U.S., so that end of the arguments appear to be nearing a conclusion.
But the details about the inmate still are being revealed.
A report from the Daily Caller, for example, explains that Department of Homeland Security documents show that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an alleged member of MS-13, a terror organization, was stopped in 2022 on suspicion of human trafficking.
It was during a traffic stop by a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer that Garcia “was found to be transporting eight passengers across the country,” according to sources for the Tennessee Star.
“He allegedly did not have a valid driver’s license and was suspected of trafficking the passengers but was let go at the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the report confirmed.
Unruh didn’t mention that that Abrego Garcia told authorities the men were traveling for construction work. He went on to repeat the claim that Abrego Garcia “is identified as a member of MS-13.”
Unruh seved up more Trump administration stenography in an April 18 article:
The fight rages on, over whether an illegal alien deported by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador can be extricated from that prison and returned to America.
El Salvador’s president says no.
Further, whether judges in America can force President Trump to go into a foreign nation, retrieve one of its citizens from behind jail bars, and bring him back to America in a scenario that likely would lead to further deportation orders.
Amid all of this, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, traveled to El Salvador and insisted to officials there he had to meet with the inmate, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, pressuring them over and over until they relented and set up a photo opportunity.
Now Trump is calling Van Hollen a “fool.”
The Washington Examiner said Trump’s comment on social media was, “Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland looked like a fool yesterday standing in El Salvador begging for attention from the Fake News Media, or anyone. GRANDSTANDER!!!”
WND also republished an article from the dubious Gateway Pundit claiming that Van Hollen had suffered a “humiliating rejection” in being initially prohibited from visiting Abrego Garcia, whom it insisted was an “MS-13 gang member.”
An anonymous WND writer snarked in an April 21 article:
Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland has chosen to fight President Donald Trump’s national security and closed border campaign by advocating for a state resident who has been in the United States illegally for a number of years, and was subject to deportation.
The illegal, Kilmar Garcia, actually was removed to El Salvador’s famed anti-gang prison, and Trump critics have claimed he was not supposed to be sent to that country.
So Van Hollen went to El Salvador and hung around until officials let him have margaritas with the inmate, and came home to make a weekend-long round of talk shows on television.
In fact, Van Hollen has said that the margarita thing was a setup by Bukele — the glasses were placed on the table by Salvadoran officials halfway through the meeting and neither he nor Abrego Garcia drank them. The anonymous WND writer went on to quote an anonymous “report” calling Abrego Garcia an “MS-13 gang member.”
Unruh hyped the unsubstantiated claims again in an April 24 article:
The governor of Illinois, a far-left extremist who is very confident of the influence he wields, has promised to fight President Donald Trump over El Salvador’s custody of an El Salvadoran citizen who was determined likely to be an MS-13 gang member who was caught in an apparent human trafficking scandal and is known to have abused his wife.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a billionaire several times over, also promises to punish El Salvador, and is being ridiculed for his agenda.
Another anonymously written May 14 article complained:
With the vigor of a man defending his son from unjust accusations, Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., in a Wednesday House hearing, repeatedly interrupted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., in her effort to enter into the record a long list of agencies that declared Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Venezuelan illegal alien deported to his home country, a member of MS-13, the murderous gang that has been designated a terrorist organization.
A May 20 article by Kovacs referenced “deported criminal illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” even though he has no criminal record.
Meanwhile, Larry Elder huffed in his May 3 column about “Illegal alien MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia,” and Don Feder whined in his May 6 column that “Kilmar Abrego Garcia is described as a ‘Maryland father,’ which is similar to calling Lizzie Borden a Massachusetts lady.”