The Left Still Won’t Let Go Of Their Worst Poster Boy

If you were around in the late 90’s, you probably remember the saga of Elián González. When he was six years-old, González’s mother attempted to bring him to the United States on a boat with other refugees. The boat sank, the mother drowned, and González was rescued by the Coast Guard. His father wanted him to return to Cuba. His relatives in Miami refused.

Thus began an infinite stream of weepy cable news segments about this child, and how Americans should care deeply about his fate, for some unknown reason. Eventually, after several months of this nonsense, the Clinton administration ended the standoff. Janet Reno sent in heavily armed agents who seized the child at gunpoint, threw him on an airplane, and transported him out of the country. It was, beyond any doubt, the single best decision that the Clinton administration made in their eight years in office. Whatever you think of the merits of the case, it was an all-time decision simply because it put an end to months of relentlessly annoying television coverage.

It also probably changed the course of U.S. history. You can make a strong case that this raid led to George W. Bush’s victory in the 2000 presidential election. Cubans in Florida were furious that Elián González was sent back, for obvious reasons. And because Florida was decided by something like 500 votes in the 2000 election, that was a pretty big deal.

At the time, Republicans were seen (correctly) as the party that would refuse to deport an innocent-looking foreign child, even if he had no right to be in this country. Rudy Giuliani , who was the mayor of New York, went so far as to call federal agents “stormtroopers” for removing Elián González from the country. Democrats, meanwhile, were seen as heartless thugs for returning this boy to his father in Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

Fast-forward a quarter century, and pretty much every aspect of this story is now being repeated — except it’s all totally inverted. This time around, of course, Democrats are universally opposed to deportation, in every imaginable scenario. Republicans, including Rudy Giuliani, are much more interested in enforcing immigration law and defending law enforcement. And instead of a sympathetic young child whose boat capsized, the main subject of everyone’s attention, against our will, is a 30-year-old illegal alien, suspected human trafficker and alleged wife-beater and gangster by the name of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. This is someone who simply will not go away, no matter how annoying he may be. Democrats are intent on keeping him in the news cycle. He is the new “Elián González.”

WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show

Right away, that doesn’t bode well for Democrats. It’s one thing to use a six-year-old child to garner sympathy for your platform, whatever it may be. But in this case, they’re using one of the least sympathetic, most grotesque foreign nationals that they possibly could have picked. They couldn’t find, say, a teenager who was wrongfully deported while he was seeking cancer treatment or something. Instead, they’re trying to force-feed us a narrative about Kilmar Abrego Garcia — someone no rational person would want living anywhere near them. There’s a mountain of evidence (which was reviewed by several judges) that he’s a member of MS-13, police think he was involved in human trafficking, and his own wife says he physically abused her.

And that’s not all.  This is from a recent DOJ filing:

Credit: Department of Justice

It reads: “One of the most troubling facts that the Government learned in its investigation was how the defendant got into MS-13. According to a co-conspirator, the defendant stated that he participated in the murder of a rival gang member’s mother in El Salvador — specifically the mother of an 18th Street Gang member. Later, as part of his immigration proceedings in the United States, the defendant claimed he could not return to El Salvador because he was in fear of retribution from the 18th Street Gang. While partially true — the defendant, according to the information received by the Government, was in fear of retaliation by the 18th Street Gang — the underlying reason for the retaliation was the defendant’s own actions in participating in the murder of a rival 18th Street gang member’s mother.”

Yes, according to the DOJ, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is worried about going back to El Salvador because he helped murder the mother of a rival gang member. He wants asylum in this country because he killed a woman. We’ve come a long way from Elián González. But this is what they’re going with. The desperation is palpable, and it is pathetic. Watch:

Credit: @NewsHour/PBS News/X

He’s been in this country for a decade, and he still can’t speak English. That’s the extent of his interest in assimilating into this country. He came here illegally, allegedly committed a bunch of crimes, and never bothered to learn the language. What a catch this guy is. But we’re supposed to feel sympathy for this “Maryland resident,” as they call him, because he has “no connection” to Uganda.

Screenshot.

Various outlets, as you’d expect, have repeated this framing that Garcia is a “Maryland man” or something along those lines, almost like they were all handed the same talking point. They’re all telling us that it would be the worst thing imaginable for this “Maryland man” to be banished to East Africa, where he doesn’t have any friends to hang out with on the weekends.

First of all, it does look like this particular “Maryland man” does indeed have some connections to Uganda.

Credit: Department of Justice.

As you can see here, Garcia, “expressed fear of persecution and torture in Uganda.” We can only guess why that might be. Perhaps he was involved in some more murderous gang activities there. In any event, he certainly isn’t going to Uganda with a totally clean slate.

Regardless, even aside from this case, the Trump administration needs to do a lot more of this. They need to send many, many more illegal aliens to countries they have no connection to. If they do that, it’s a very powerful incentive for illegal aliens to self-deport. If you’re, say, a Mexican who’s living illegally in the United States right now, there’s really no reason for you to voluntarily inform ICE of your status, leave the country and go back home. But if you know that ICE will send you to Siberia if you fail to self-deport, then you have a very good reason to come forward and self-deport. Millions of Mexicans would much rather be back home in Mexico, than shipped to some hellhole overseas where they’ve never been.

As for Kilmar Garcia himself, the fact is, he has a “connection” to El Salvador, since that’s where he’s from. But he doesn’t want to go back there, because according to the DOJ, he may have committed a homicide that the local gangs wouldn’t approve of. (According to Garcia, he’ll be hunted by the gangs for reasons that have nothing to do with his own actions.) So really, there aren’t a whole lot of options here. He’s suggested that he wants to be deported to Costa Rica, because the government there has offered to protect him. But the DOJ won’t allow him to go to Costa Rica unless he pleads guilty to human trafficking charges and serves time, which he refuses to do. Watch:

Credit: Credit: @NewsHour/PBS News/X

Yes, it is “punitive.” He’s absolutely right about that. That’s what happens when you enter this country illegally. You don’t get to dictate the terms of your exit. When you’re caught breaking into someone’s home, you don’t get to tell the police what jail you want to be transported to. And when you break into the United States, you don’t get to tell us where the deportation flight should go. That is precisely the message that the Trump administration should be sending, in order to deter other criminals from entering the United States.

To be clear, just because something is “punitive” doesn’t make it illegal. We have “punitive damages” in lawsuits. They’re awarded all the time by juries in this country. And punitive damages are often very, very large. The point of these large damage awards is to make people think twice before they do something illegal.

More to the point, the government offers incentives for defendants to plead guilty all of the time. That’s why people plead guilty. In return for admitting guilt, defendants can get more lenient sentences. They can get some other charges dropped. And so on. That happens every day, to American citizens. That’s not “pressuring” anyone into taking a guilty plea. It’s giving them an incentive to do so, if they choose. It would be different if the government said, “plead guilty, or else we’re going to do something to you that we otherwise could not legally do, like beat you up in your jail cell.” But that’s not what’s happening to Kilmar Garcia. Instead, the government is saying, “plead guilty, or we will do something that we have every legal right to do, which will make your life worse.” That’s completely fine. That happens constantly to American citizens, and no one says a word about it.

What we cannot allow — and what Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s lawyers want to have happen — is for illegal aliens to assume even more rights and protections than U.S. citizens.

The District of Maryland has imposed a new Standing Order that blocks the removal of any illegal alien if their lawyer files a habeas petition

Doesn’t matter if the petition is frivolous: the injunction is automatic

Constitutional crisis pic.twitter.com/TIWFH631f0

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 22, 2025

Credit: @willchamberlain/X

But that’s already happening. As the lawyer Will Chamberlain pointed out, the district of Maryland has imposed a “standing order” which prohibits the federal government from deporting any illegal alien, as soon as that alien’s lawyers (or the alien himself) files a petition in federal court. It doesn’t matter what the petition says. The circumstances of the case are irrelevant. Essentially, the courts (And the aliens themselves) get veto power over deportations.

Credit: United States District Court, District of Maryland

This is the “standing order” that Obama District Judge Paula Xinis, pictured here, is enforcing in this case. It’s obviously unconstitutional. The federal government doesn’t have to check with a random feminist judge on some district court before it carries out its responsibilities — nor could the federal government possibly function, if it had that obligation. None of the hyperventilating network news pundits will call this a “constitutional crisis,” but it’s obviously intolerable. There’s no chance that this remains on the books for very long, because if it does, then the federal government will have no choice but to defy the courts and destroy their legitimacy forever.

The confusing part of this story is that, at some level, you have to assume Democrats understand they have no case here. This is yet another 80-20 issue, where the vast majority of Americans are opposed to the Democrat Party. Every sane person wants Kilmar Abrego Garcia to be deported.  The only people taking the opposite position are a handful of paid political operatives, useless journalists, and lunatics who have gathered together to form a “rapid response choir.” Watch:

Anti-Trump “Rapid Response Choir” calls for Kilmar Abrego-Garcia to be freed with a song. pic.twitter.com/h8sND1Fn3w

— Fox News (@FoxNews) August 25, 2025

The irony, of course, is that despite what they’re singing, Kilmar is not their neighbor. None of these people would live anywhere near this man, in a million years. Whether they’ll admit it or not, every low-testosterone male and unhappy woman in this “rapid response choir” would immediately move out of their homes the instant that Kilmar Abrego Garcia (or anyone like him) moved in next door.

What we’re seeing here is desperation. Democrats’ plan for demographic replacement is failing because of the Trump administration. This administration was never supposed to take office. There were a lot of criminal cases and assassinations to stop Donald Trump, as you may remember. But now that all of those efforts have failed, Democrats are in a lot of trouble.

As the New York Times reported last night: 

In the next decade, the Electoral College will tilt significantly away from Democrats. Deeply conservative Texas and Florida could gain a total of five congressional seats, and the red states of Utah and Idaho are each expected to add a seat. … Those gains will come at the expense of major Democratic states like New York and California. … Across all of the possible scenarios in the nine states that would be considered battlegrounds in the 2032 election, Democrats would see about a third of their current winning Electoral College combinations disappear if population projections hold. However, when looking only at the most feasible winning combinations based on voting behaviors in the 2024 election, the outlook is far worse. Of Democrats’ 25 most plausible paths to victory in 2024, only five would remain.

In other words, Democrats are losing population in their power centers — the states they’ve destroyed with their mismanagement, like New York and California. And they’re not adding enough new illegal aliens to make up for the shortfall, because many of those illegal aliens are being turned around at the border (or deported if they’re already here). Therefore, Democrats will have a very big problem winning any national elections after the 2030 Census takes effect. (As we discussed before, the previous Census also “accidentally” over-counted Democrats.).

This is why they’re flailing about, and using Kilmar Abrego Garcia, of all people, as their rallying cry. They don’t know what else to do. Looking at the numbers, they understand that they’re about to lose most of their political power. Their only hope is to ensure that every gangster and thug in this country is allowed to remain here, and vote Democrat. With every unhinged song and dance defending this man, Democrats are admitting that. They have no other options. They can’t even find a sympathetic six-year-old like Elián González to make their case. Instead, they have to defend Kilmar Abrego Garcia — because they know that, if they don’t, then before long, no one else is going to vote for them.