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Editor’s Note: Some readers may find the focus of this article unusual for an Australian outlet. However, Australia’s taxpayer-funded broadcaster, the ABC, has extensively covered the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a convicted criminal and alleged gang member — portraying him in sympathetic terms. Given this surprising editorial investment and the fact that Australian taxpayers are being used to fund what amounts to political propaganda against US President Donald Trump, The Daily Declaration believes it is vital to provide readers with the broader context and set the record straight.

Democrats are increasingly rallying around illegal immigrants — even those convicted or accused of serious crimes — in an effort to oppose President Donald Trump’s deportation program, but the alliance with violent illegal immigrants may be doing more damage to the Democrats than to the president.

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) travelled to El Salvador last week to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant who the Trump administration has linked to the foreign terrorist organization and international criminal gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). Garcia had previously been given final deportation orders and, under Trump, was deported to his home country of El Salvador after being identified as an MS-13 member.

Van Hollen has been joined by numerous other Democrats in his call to have Garcia released and returned to the US. In a video posted to social media, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) shared that he and Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), and Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) were visiting El Salvador “advocating for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and, of course, checking in on so many folks that have been sent here without due process.” Perhaps unaware that Garcia hails from El Salvador, the congressman stated, “Kilmar needs to come home, we need to build support here in El Salvador but also the United States. He must come home.”

In another video, Ansari confirmed that she and other House Democrats are in El Salvador “strongly advocating for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador, where he has been wrongfully deported to a prison here by Donald Trump.” She demanded “regular proof-of-life confirmation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio,” adding, “We want to know his health and wellbeing, we want to make sure he has access to counsel, and finally, he needs to be released.”

The media and Democrats are lying to you about Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

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— Cabot Phillips (@cabot_phillips) April 22, 2025

Favouring Gang Members Over Their American Victims

Ansari further explained that Democrats in El Salvador are working on securing the release of other deportees, such as Venezuelan national Andry Hernandez Romero, who has been identified by federal law enforcement as a member of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) foreign terrorist organization. The freshman congresswoman called on her colleagues to join her in sunny El Salvador and advocate for deported illegal immigrant gang members. “I hope other members of Congress come here and see this for themselves, advocate for Kilmar, for Andry, and for others who have been wrongly detained and deported,” she said.

The Democrats’ support for Garcia and others deported after being identified as affiliates or members of foreign terrorist organisations has sparked outrage on the Right. Patty Morin, whose daughter Rachel was brutally raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant in Maryland, castigated Van Hollen and others for supporting an illegal immigrant with criminal ties but not American victims of illegal immigrant violence. “It’s been about 20 months since my daughter was murdered; it’s been about 10 months that we’ve known it’s been an illegal immigrant,” Morin said in an interview. She continued, “Senators here in Maryland have not reached out at all. And it’s been almost 20 months, total. So their silence and their actions or lack of actions speak volumes to their character and the values that they hold.” Morin stated, “As an American citizen, as a Maryland citizen, and as a mom, it tells me that I’m not important or valuable, and that an illegal immigrant … they would rather champion his cause, a criminal, than the victim. I think it is utterly despicable.”

Border czar and former US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) chief Tom Homan called the Democrats’ support for Garcia and others “pathetic and disgusting,” warning them that their support makes them “complicit” in crimes committed by illegal immigrants. “When you don’t care about your constituency, when you don’t care about public safety and national security, you’re an embarrassment to the position you hold,” Homan declared. He asked, “Where were you when thousands of American parents buried their children? They got separated from [their] children forever because they were killed by illegal aliens that entered this country illegally. [Those are] preventable crimes.”

Gang Members the Least of Americans’ Concerns

But Republicans aren’t the only ones who view Democratic support for illegal immigrants linked to criminal terrorist groups as alarming. Democrats’ own political consultants are warning that support for Garcia and others is likely damaging Democrats. “People can’t afford eggs, and … you’re flying to sit with someone who’s accused of being in a gang,” one Democrat operative told The Hill in exasperation. “We need to step back and wait for someone to be deported who has a really compelling story that’s devastating[,] that Average Joe’s upset about. That person hasn’t presented themselves yet,” the operative continued.

He added, “The hit on [Van Hollen] that he’ll fly to El Salvador on taxpayer dollars and meet with a guy who’s accused of being in a gang, but he won’t meet with the family of gang victims in his home state is a very fair hit.” The operative noted that “senators who actually have to deal with immigration as an issue in their state in order to win” are “not trying to hop on top of this,” but the fact that “a liberal senator from Maryland kind of tells you everything you need to know about how palpable it is to the middle.” He warned, “I think we need to pick and choose our messengers better and we need to pick and choose our battles better.”

Another Democrat strategist told CNN that most Democrats “crank the volume up to 11 and take advantage of whatever the easiest, most obvious photo opportunity is,” but cautioned, “In this case, you get a situation where you’re giving the White House and the Republicans a lot of images and visuals that they think are compelling for them.” Another Democrat operative urged legislators visiting El Salvador to broaden the scope of their advocacy beyond Garcia, especially in case the allegations that Garcia is affiliated with MS-13 are revealed to be accurate. Even California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), who has taken a strong position against the president’s immigration agenda and deportations, called the focus on Garcia a “distraction.” He warned that Garcia’s is a “tough case” for Democrats to champion, especially because the party may be seen as defending MS-13 and “someone who’s out of sight, out of mind in El Salvador.”

Democrats have also rallied around two foreign students slated for deportation following their organization of pro-Hamas rallies and events on US college campuses. Reps. Troy Carter (D-La.), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Ayana Pressley (D-Mass.), and Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) recently visited Algerian-born Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil and Turkish-born Tufts University student activist Rümeysa Öztürk, both of whom were involved in organising high-profile protests and campus encampments in support of Hamas and the Palestinian terrorist organization’s war against Israel. Carter told reporters that the visit to Khalil and Öztürk was intended to “let them know we stand firm with them, in support of free speech.” Pressley added in a social media post, “To Rümeysa, Mahmoud, and everyone who has been harmed by this lawless White House: we see you and we won’t stop fighting for you.”

While Democrats have been rushing to express their support for and solidarity with illegal immigrants, criminal gang members, and other deportees, most have refused to address the crimes being committed by illegal immigrants across the country, especially in “sanctuary” jurisdictions. In Maryland, two illegal immigrants have been charged — one with murder and the other with accessory to murder — both in connection with the disappearance of 23-year-old mother of two Lesbia Mileth Ramirez Guerra, whose body was discovered buried in Cedarville State Forest. As of the time of writing, Van Hollen has made no public comment on the case but still continues to post on social media about Garcia.

More on Democrats’ Love Affair With Gang Members

In California, authorities are preparing to release an illegal immigrant who was imprisoned after killing two teenagers while driving drunk and high — over six years before his prison sentence is scheduled to end. Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano, a Mexican national who had been previously deported twice, killed 19-year-old US citizens Anya Varfolomeev and Nikolay Osokin in 2021. He was sentenced in 2022 to two concurrently-served 10-year prison sentences. On Resurrection Sunday, the California Department of Corrections alerted family members of Ortega-Anguiano’s victims that he would be released in July, after serving less than four years of his sentence. ICE quickly filed a detainer request and Newsom confirmed that California authorities intend to turn Ortega-Anguiano over to ICE upon his release.

In another case, a 41-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador allegedly raped and murdered a 13-year-old boy in California. US Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli said that the rape and murder was “an avoidable crime and the result of failed border policies.” He continued, “We cannot and will not tolerate illegal aliens who flout our nation’s immigration laws then prey on children. Federal law enforcement will continue to be very aggressive in locating, apprehending, and prosecuting criminal illegal aliens.” Numerous teenage boys have come forward and alleged that they also were preyed upon by the illegal immigrant, Mario Edgardo Garcia-Aquino, who was working as a soccer coach for boys.

An Economist/YouGov poll published recently found that over half of Americans approve of the president’s handling of immigration issues, including deportations. Another survey found that nearly half (48%) of Americans support deporting all illegal immigrants, while 35% support deportations only if illegal immigrants have committed crimes within US borders, yielding a total of 83% who support the deportation of illegal immigrants accused or convicted of crimes in America.

Meanwhile, support for figures such as Khalil, who was arrested by ICE in March, is low, standing at only 20% favorability among the nearly-70% of Americans who know who he is and aware of his arrest. Surveys on the subject of Garcia’s deportation and possible return to the US are more mixed, with roughly half of Americans supporting his return to the US and over 60% believing he was deported in error. The White House, however, has contradicted that narrative and insisted that Garcia’s deportation was a result of his links to MS-13.

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Republished with thanks to The Washington Stand. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.