Vice President J.D. Vance was criticized after he doubled down on his insistence that a Maryland father who was accidentally deported to an El Salvadorian prison due to an "administrative error" was a criminal, justifying the move—much to the anger of social media users—because the man had "traffic violations" that warranted his removal.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who arrived in the U.S. in 2012, was labeled a threat in 2019 due to an alleged connection to the MS-13 gang. He spent months in detention before an immigration judge found he had a credible fear of persecution—not from MS-13, but from a rival group, Barrio 18, which he said had been extorting his family.
Following that ruling, Abrego Garcia was released and reunited with his wife and son, both U.S. citizens. However, without warning, immigration authorities detained and deported him last month. He has consistently denied any affiliation with MS-13.
The Justice Department has since acknowledged that his removal violated a 2019 court order, calling it an error. Nonetheless, officials maintain they still consider him a threat based on the original allegations.
But according to Vance, in conversation with Fox News' Lawrence Jones, the deportation is justified because of Abrego Garcia's prior "traffic violations," suggesting that alone is enough to warrant sending the man to one of the most violent and dangerous prisons in the world:
"There have been a few cases out there where the Democrats and the media say, 'Oh, this person was an innocent father of three,' then you find out that back in 2019 an immigration judge looked at all the evidence, looked at all the data, and concluded that this allegedly innocent person that we sent to El Salvador was actually a member of an MS-13 gang."
"He had also committed some traffic violations. He had not shown up for some court dates. This is not exactly ‘Father of the Year’ here. This is a person that we don’t think should be in our country."
"Here’s the most important point, though, Lawrence, is whatever the argument is, whatever the justification is, no one doubts...not even the crazy left-wing media criticized the idea that we could deport this person. They just took issue with the reasoning for why we deported this person."
"This was unquestionably an illegal alien. This was, unquestionably, a person who broke the laws to get into our country. This is unquestionably a person an immigration judge had found had zero right to be in the United States of America."
Vance stressed that the Trump administration would "not ask permission from far-left Democrats before we deport illegal immigrants," adding:
"We do the American people’s business, and again, for the Americans who are watching, this is such a weird, mistaken placement of priorities. We need to make our country stronger. We need to create jobs. We need to make our streets safer."
"What is it about Congressional Democrats that get more angry at deporting violent gang members than they do at the victims of those violent gang members? I don’t even understand where they’re coming from. They’ve gone off the deep end, and they’ve got to come back to reality."
You can watch a clip of his interview below:
But Vance mischaracterized key facts in the case of Abrego Garcia.
Following a two-day immigration hearing in September 2019, a judge granted Abrego Garcia “withholding of removal” status, determining that he would likely face persecution if returned to El Salvador. That protection legally barred his deportation unless the status was formally rescinded by a judge.
Abrego Garcia, who arrived in the U.S. as an undocumented teenager hoping to reunite with his brother in Maryland, had since built a life in the U.S. He shares a 5-year-old nonverbal son with his wife, a U.S. citizen, and was working full time as a sheet metal apprentice.
According to court documents, he was picking up his son from his grandmother’s home last month when immigration officers detained him, claiming his status had changed. His attorneys say Abrego Garcia has no criminal record in the U.S. or elsewhere.
His wife eventually recognized him in news footage of one of the deportation flights ordered by President Trump under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798—a rarely used law invoked only three other times in history.
Vance was criticized for his remarks.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis rejected the Trump administration’s request to reverse her Friday ruling, which mandates that Kilmar Abrego Garcia be returned to the U.S. by Monday night. The Justice Department argued the court had overstepped, claiming the order encroached on President Trump’s exclusive authority over foreign policy.
The case has sparked intense backlash—not just from the judiciary and congressional Democrats, but within the Justice Department itself.
Attorney General Pam Bondi placed DOJ attorney Erez Reuveni on leave after Friday’s hearing, during which he voiced frustration at the department’s unwillingness to offer more information or take concrete steps to comply with the court order and facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
