Skip to main content

Here's the head-turning headline you missed this week

Chris Brennan   Paste BN

This week is not yet over, but it has already been overstocked with head-turning headlines that you may have missed: A new development in a long-running story about immigration.

Here’s what the June 29 scoop from the Washington Post told us – President Donald Trump’s administration is so stubbornly set on pursuing criminal charges against an immigrant it wrongfully deported in March that it has struck a sweetheart get-out-of-prison/no-deportation deal with another immigrant with a significant criminal history here in America.

That, of course, is the exact opposite of Trump’s repeated claims that his administration is singularly focused on deporting violent criminals. 

Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered in your inbox every Thursday.

You’ve probably heard the name Kilmar Ábrego García, the immigrant from El Salvador who entered this country illegally but had no criminal record while living in Maryland for more than a decade, a husband to an American citizen, father to an American child.

You may not have heard the name Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, also from El Salvador, who also entered this country illegally and had been deported multiple times, the Washington Post reported while noting that “he has been arrested or in prison every year” since 2015. 

Hernandez Reyes served time in a Texas state prison after he pleaded guilty to firing a gun from a pickup truck while drunk in 2022. That conviction prompted a federal prison term for illegal entry into America after being convicted of a serious crime.

Here is a clear example of what the Trump administration considers a dangerous criminal in this country illegally. Except, with this guy, the Trump administration chooses to call him a “star witness” in the case against García.

The Washington Post’s review of court documents in this case shows that Hernandez Reyes received an early release from his current prison term to a halfway house and permission to stay in America for at least a year in return for testifying that he and García smuggled undocumented immigrants around the country.

García has pleaded not guilty in that case. A judge and jury will decide his fate. 

That will be far more due process than he got when the Trump administration hustled him out of the country to a notorious El Salvador prison and then claimed it lacked the power to bring him back when a judge ordered that. The Trump administration magically regained its powers after García was charged with human smuggling and brought him back to America.

The notoriously short-sighted Trump administration already considers the court case against García a victory. 

They’re so blinded by their own bigotry when it comes to immigration that they probably can’t see that getting all close and cozy with a criminal known both for violence and entering the country illegally shows they’ve always been more interested in headlines and hate than the safety of Americans.

Here's what else we're writing about:

Facebook Twitter Email