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Once again, Australians have been forced to pay for slanted ABC News coverage — this time in months-long support of an alleged child smuggler and violent Salvadoran criminal.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an alleged violent gang member deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration in April, has now been returned to the US to face federal charges for a decade-long career in human trafficking.

While intriguing on its own merits, the Garcia story has further exposed extreme political bias at Australia’s national broadcaster.

Between March and May this year, ABC News — funded generously by Australian taxpayers — published dozens of articles and other reports portraying Garcia in a consistently sympathetic light. The network repeatedly described him as “wrongly deported” and regularly stressed his lack of criminal record and valid US work permit in a bid to downplay the serious charges against him and cast him as a victim of injustice.

Federal officials had flagged Garcia for alleged ties to the violent MS-13 gang and ordered his removal from the United States, citing the threat he posed to national security. However, as his case drew international attention, ABC News made a conscious editorial decision to discredit the Trump administration’s charges and instead echo America’s activist media.

Australian taxpayers were forced to fund stories that framed Garcia’s deportation not as a security measure, but a violation of his rights and an imagined precedent of how President Trump planned to treat immigrants living legally within the US.

How ABC News Fooled Its Readers

In story after story, ABC News crafted narratives that overtly humanised Kilmar Abrego Garcia, portraying him as a hardworking immigrant, a devoted husband, and a loving father. The outlet chose photos of Garcia wearing casual attire instead of prison garb, and images of his wife wiping away tears. They also offered glowing coverage of a Democratic senator’s high-profile visit to El Salvador to meet with Garcia.

Meanwhile, the publicly-funded outlet gave minimal attention to the serious criminal accusations facing Garcia, including his reported ties to MS-13. Equally absent from their coverage were the multiple temporary protective orders filed against him by his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, who accused him of domestic violence — including incidents of punching, scratching and slapping.

In the ABC News reports, the Trump administration’s accusations against Garcia were briefly noted but quickly countered with denials from Garcia’s lawyers and family, without further investigation or detail.

But the public broadcaster’s most dishonest behaviour came last week, as news broke of Garcia’s return to the US to face federal criminal charges.

ABC News Buries Garcia’s Worst Crimes

According to the indictment announced by US Attorney General Pam Bondi, Kilmar Abrego Garcia played a “significant role” in a human smuggling network that operated for nearly ten years. Bondi described him as a full-time trafficker who made over 100 trips, transporting women, children and individuals with ties to the MS-13 gang across the United States.

Since Bondi’s announcement last Friday, ABC News has published only a single article on the case — a brief report of under 450 words that relied on Reuters syndicated content and lacked an ABC byline.

The public broadcaster’s report omitted the most serious allegations brought against Garcia — making no mention of child trafficking, solicitation of explicit images from a minor, or Garcia’s alleged involvement in violent crimes. Charges were described generically — such as “transporting illegal immigrants”, with no elaboration on firearms or narcotics trafficking.

ABC News also failed to report key evidence, including a 2022 police bodycam video showing Garcia trafficking eight men and carrying $1,400 in cash, or that the encounter triggered a gang and terrorism alert in the national law enforcement database.

ABC News Betrays Its Impartiality Mandate — Again

Why the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has invested so heavily in favourable coverage of a figure like Kilmar Abrego Garcia — despite damning criminal allegations — remains unclear. The most straightforward explanation, however, may lie in the broadcaster’s long-standing hostility toward President Donald Trump.

Private media outlets are free to adopt an editorial stance — The Daily Declaration, for instance, is transparent about its Judeo-Christian values.

But the same cannot be said for the ABC, a taxpayer-funded institution bound by a charter that mandates impartiality. According to its own guidelines, the ABC is required to provide “accurate, fair and unbiased information” that helps “audiences make up their own minds on controversial issues”.

Far too often, however, the ABC has strayed from this mandate — and its coverage of the Garcia case is only the latest example.

When public funds are used to shield alleged criminals from scrutiny and to prosecute partisan narratives against the elected leader of a closely allied nation, Australians have every right to ask: who is the ABC really serving?

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Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.