Star witness against Kilmar Abrego García was due to be deported. Now he’s being freed. The Trump administration has agreed to release from prison a three-time felon who drunkenly fired shots in a Texas community and spare him from deportation in exchange for his cooperation in the federal prosecution of Kilmar Abrego García, according to a review of court records and official testimony. Hernandez is among a handful of cooperating witnesses who could help the Trump administration achieve its goal of never letting Abrego walk free in the United States again. In exchange, he has already been released early from federal prison to a halfway house and has been given permission to stay in the U.S. for at least a year. Hernandez’s criminal record dates at least to 2015, when police in Chesterfield County, Virginia, arrested him for public drunkenness and he paid a small fine. He has been arrested or in prison every year since, according to federal, state and county records reviewed by The Post. Houston police arrested him in 2016 for alleged cocaine possession, but court records show prosecutors dismissed the case because of an issue with the search. Police in College Station, Texas, arrested him in 2017 for allegedly driving while intoxicated with a handgun in the car. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor drunken driving and was punished with 60 days in jail and a $1,500 fine. He also forfeited the gun to the state. So that they can convict Abrego Garcia and deport him again Trump's ICE and DOJ are willing to let Hernandez and probably other illegal aliens convicted of felonies remain in the US and they're doing so while detaining and deporting other undocumented immigrants whose only "crime" is illegal presence in the US including a number of whom have citizen spouses and children, are productive members of society and have been in the US sometimes for decades.
Makes me kind of wonder if Trump is a bit of a ...... hypocrite .... on all this immigration stuff. MAGA won't care about this criminal being turned loose in public. (They'll be busy complaining about criminals illegal immigrants being loose in public.)
In this case the deal is giving at least one and probably multiple criminal illegal aliens a free pass in exchange for testimony against another high profile undocumented alien who may or may not be a criminal so that they can legally deport him after failing to do so illegally. Just a guess if the government is going to rely on the testimony of other undocumented aliens who have been convicted of real crimes in exchange for leniency including release from detention and waiver of deportation they may not have a very strong case.
True, but Trump has hammered illegals for so long, for their criminality, and their threat to the very fabric of this nation, that this particular deal leaves an extra nasty taste. The guy (Hernandez) was due to be deported for the 6th time, obviously a career criminal, until Federal agents showed up with promises of half-way houses, no deportation, and a possible US work permit. Gee, I can hardly believe he'd take that deal. Trump's relentless pursuit of Garcia, no matter what the cost, is just weird.
That's kinda the same argument used to rationalize sanctuary cities. Shoulda kept him custody til after trial, with release as a dangling carrot, not paid up front with a "pretty please, don't skip on us!"
The argument with “sanctuary cities” is that people who are witnesses or victims of crime can feel free to report that crime without fear of their immigration status being turned immediately against them. It’s especially important for victims to be able to report crimes (think women who may be victims of trafficking or rape, but may also be afraid of deportation… you purport to want to go after traffickers, no!?). This is taking a lowlife who is already a convicted criminal convicted of worse crimes than they allege against Garcia. So I think the unusual thing is they released a worse criminal to go after what appears to be a flimsier case. That is 100% political more than rational. It’s not the first time a deal has been cut with a scumbag to be sure. But that’s typically to go after bigger fish, it must be quite rare to cut a deal with a habitual criminal to go after seemingly lesser crimes.
I'm thinking the case against Garcia isn't very strong, if they're making deals with a repeat offender. Any decent defender should be able to obliterate his credibility.
Hilarious. This is about a criminal trial, not politics. Well, it's "politics" to people who want to point to the Garcia trial as some meaningful data point in their abortive quest to show how Daddy Donny is really really strong on illegal immigration. But it's really just the trial of one person. Not meaningful in the grand scheme of things, other than the Trump Administration's abuse of the Constitution, of course.
Absolutely. If the government had a strong case against Abrego Garcia he would have been charged back in 2022 when he was originally pulled over with the other workers in the van he was driving. The only reason that he is being charged is to provide a pretext for another and presumably legal deportation. By the way there was a reason why a court issued an order prohibiting his deportation back to El Salvador. It's most likely based on the belief supported by evidence that he would be targeted by a gang not because he's a gang member.