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Top Papers Dutifully Echo Cooked-Up Charges Against Abrego Garcia Emma Llano ([link removed])


Al Jazeera: Deported man Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to US to face charges

After citing Trump administration charges that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13, Al Jazeera (6/6/25 ([link removed]) ) included a response from his advocates: "His lawyers have denied that he was a gang member and said he had not been convicted of any crime."

Kilmar Abrego Garcia ([link removed]) was returned to the United States on June 6, after being wrongly deported to El Salvador almost three months earlier. Abrego Garcia had been detained ([link removed]) in El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center since March 15, along with more than 250 other immigrants ([link removed]) accused of belonging to the Latin American gangs Tren de Aragua ([link removed]) and MS-13 ([link removed]) .

Abrego Garcia’s case drew particular media attention, due to the admission by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that his deportation and subsequent imprisonment were a result of an “administrative error ([link removed]) .” For weeks, however, both the Trump administration and the Salvadoran government insisted ([link removed]) they were powerless ([link removed]) to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.

After months of protests from Abrego Garcia’s Maryland community ([link removed]) and legal challenges ([link removed]) from his lawyers, the father of three was finally returned to the US. But there was a caveat: He would face criminal charges ([link removed]) related to an immigrant-smuggling operation that the Department of Justice alleges Abrego Garcia took part in as a member of MS-13.

Though there are plenty of reasons to cast doubt on the charges made against Abrego Garcia, in the seven articles published in the wake of his return, the New York Times (6/6/25 ([link removed]) , 6/6/25 ([link removed]) , 6/6/25 ([link removed]) , 6/8/25 ([link removed]) ) and Wall Street Journal (6/6/25 ([link removed]) , 6/7/25 ([link removed]) , 6/8/25
([link removed]) ) present them mostly at face value. Given that the publications are the top two largest ([link removed]) newspapers in America, their deficient coverage of one of the most important immigration cases of the second Trump administration is noteworthy.


** Unreliable sources
------------------------------------------------------------
NYT: U.S. Returns Abrego Garcia From El Salvador to Face Criminal Charges

The main New York Times story (6/6/25 ([link removed]) ) on Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return from El Salvador consists largely of Trump administration officials accusing him of crimes—with no quotes from Abrego Garcia's lawyers contesting those charges.

Only two of the articles (New York Times, 6/6/25 ([link removed]) ; Wall Street Journal, 6/7/25 ([link removed]) ) mentioned that the charges against Abrego Garcia stem from recent information supplied by jailhouse informants. The articles failed to note that such testimony is notoriously unreliable, as documented by research ([link removed]) , and frequently results in wrongful convictions.

Though there are six unnamed co-conspirators listed in the indictment ([link removed]) , it appears as though the majority of the charges rely on the testimony of one or two of these individuals. Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, told CNN’s Erin Burnett (6/6/25 ([link removed]) ), “The very first question I'm going to be asking is, what were those two people offered to make up these really fantastic, hyperbolic allegations against Mr. Abrego Garcia?”

The DoJ’s stonewalling ([link removed]) of Abrego Garcia’s lawyers in his civil case should raise further suspicion about why these jailhouse informants decided to come forward now, despite the DoJ’s allegation that Abrego Garcia has been involved with immigrant smuggling since 2016. None of the articles mention that Abrego Garcia had been attending yearly check-ins ([link removed]) with ICE since 2019, and that these allegations had not come up during the six years that ICE had been monitoring him, nor were they mentioned during the trial that resulted in a judge granting him withholding of removal ([link removed]) .

In their New York Times piece (6/6/25 ([link removed]) ), reporters Devlin Barrett ([link removed]) , Alan Feuer ([link removed]) and Glenn Thrush dedicated two paragraphs to a 2022 traffic stop ([link removed]) involving Abrego Garcia that the indictment cites as evidence of a smuggling operation, while curiously omitting the fact that he was not charged with a crime at the time of the incident.

None of the articles mentioned that Abrego Garcia had been in ICE detention for seven months ([link removed]) in 2019, at the same time that the DoJ alleges he was leading an immigrant smuggling operation. Also missing in the Times and Journal’s coverage was the fact that the police officer who authored the 2019 report was later terminated for sharing “sensitive and confidential information about an ongoing police investigation with a commercial sex worker” (USA Today, 4/17/25 ([link removed]) ).


** Sidelining advocates
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WSJ: U.S. Brings Abrego Garcia Back From El Salvador to Face Criminal Charges

The Wall Street Journal (6/6/25 ([link removed]) ) published several paragraphs alleging crimes by Abrego Garcia with no rebuttal.

Two articles omitted comments from Abrego Garcia’s legal team altogether (New York Times 6/6/25 ([link removed]) ; Wall Street Journal, 6/7/25 ([link removed]) ). While the other articles do quote Abrego Garcia's lawyers, they cited them only about his initial deportation and his return, but not about the criminal charges. Three articles (New York Times, 6/6/25 ([link removed]) , 6/6/25 ([link removed]) ; Wall Street Journal, 6/6/25 ([link removed]) ) include the same sole quote from Andrew
Rossman, another one of Abrego Garcia’s lawyers:

Today’s action proves what we’ve known all along—that the administration had the ability to bring him back and just refused to do so…. It’s now up to our judicial system to see that Mr. Abrego Garcia receives the due process that the Constitution guarantees to all persons.

When given the chance to comment on the criminal allegations, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have been clear that these charges are “preposterous ([link removed]) .” Sandoval-Moshenberg told CBS affiliate WUSA9 (6/6/25 ([link removed]) ), “What happened today is the exact opposite of due process, because due process means the opportunity to defend yourself before you're punished, not afterwards.”

Another one of his lawyers, Chris Newman, who is also the legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, told WUSA9 (6/6/25 ([link removed]) ) in the same conference:

This administration has shown amazing disregard for the Constitution, for due process and for basic decency. It is engaged in an unprecedented campaign of disinformation, defamation and cruelty directed at Kilmar's family.

Another member of Abrego Garcia’s legal team, Brian Murray, told MSNBC’s Alex Witt (6/7/25 ([link removed]) ), “Anyone who’s been looking at this case and has been watching this play out would agree this is a political and vindictive prosecution.”

In the days since Abrego Garcia’s release, his legal team has frequently made themselves available to media to speak about the criminal charges and ongoing constitutional issues surrounding his case. At a time when immigrants’ rights to free speech ([link removed]) are under attack, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal chose to sideline the voices of their advocates.


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