The Evidence Linking Kilmar Abrego Garcia to MS-13: A Chicago Bulls Hat and a Hoodie

The Trump administration is doubling down on depicting Kilmar Abrego Garcia as a dangerous gang member The establishment s proof for this claim appears to hinge on a Chicago Bulls cap and a hoodie While Trump continues to flout court orders to facilitate the Maryland father s release from a notorious El Salvador prison it is pointing to flimsy evidence of alleged MS- ties adding to a long-running pattern of dubious gang designations by law enforcement and immigration agents Last month immigration enforcement representatives rounded up hundreds of expatriates under the Alien Enemies Act of accusing them of being members of gangs the administration deemed terrorist organizations Abrego Garcia a Salvadoran national was among the men sent to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo or CECOT prison The executive admitted in court filings that he was sent there due to an administrative error in violation of a court order blocking his deportation due to threats to his safety in El Salvador While a multitude of of the other detained men appear to be labeled as gang members mainly because of their tattoos law enforcement bureaucrats seem to have singled Abrego Garcia out for his attire additional documents issued Wednesday by Attorney General Pam Bondi show Wearing the Chicago Bulls hat represents that they are a member in good standing with MS- The documents distributed detail a Prince George s County Police Department encounter with Abrego Garcia in Officers observed he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with rolls of money covering the eyes ears and mouth of the presidents they wrote Officers know such clothing to be indicative of the Hispanic gang lifestyle The gang field interview sheet from the Prince George s County Police Department notes that wearing the Chicago Bulls hat represents that they are a member in good standing with MS- Officers also stated they reached out to a confidential informant who claimed that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS- In court it was revealed that the source claimed Abrego Garcia was a member of the gang in New York a place where he never lived Abrego Garcia has never been charged with a crime and his family maintains that he was never a member of any gang Ana Mu iz a professor of criminology law and society at UC Irvine reported it s not at all surprising that police and immigration bureaucrats put so much emphasis on his hat as a way to prove his gang ties A gang designation is something that police really use to maintain contact mainly with men of color in low-income urban neighborhoods when they can t find enough to certainly charge them with a crime disclosed Mu iz the author of Borderland Circuitry Immigration Surveillance in the United States and Beyond You have people with gang designations people on gang databases who are designated on things like clothing from very popular sports brands Related How a Landlord and a Florida PR Firm Helped Trump Kick Off the Tren de Aragua Gang Panic Mu iz explained that law enforcement agencies generally use a or -point system to determine gang affiliation based on factors as mundane and subjective as wearing sports apparel or frequenting a gang area To be placed on a gang database individuals often only need to meet two of the categories she mentioned In an ethnography Mu iz conducted on gang designation in Los Angeles she ascertained that the Los Angeles Police Department considered Dodgers gear to be indicative of gang membership in certain contexts Mu iz announced If you ve ever been to LA everyone is wearing Dodgers gear Though the Chicago Bulls aren t local to Maryland where Abrego Garcia lived Bulls apparel has reportedly been the best-selling pro basketball apparel in the state Read Our Complete Coverage The War on Immigrants Gang designations can become sweep up wide swaths of the population at one point roughly half of all Black men in Los Angeles between the ages of to years old were listed on a gang database according to a document published in the Asian Pacific American Law Journal For people like Abrego Garcia being listed as having a gang affiliation no matter how thin the justification can have serious immigration consequences Yet in specific cases people might not even be aware that they re on a gang database It s really common for police when they can t charge someone with a crime or find something to get them on to slap this very easy designation on them Mu iz reported and then eventually it will make its way up to ICE and ICE will use that in court to argue for things like expedited deportation or compulsory detention Related For Immigrant Students on Long Island Trump s War on Gangs Means the Wrong T-Shirt Could Get You Deported Abrego Garcia is far from the first situation of Chicago Bulls attire being weaponized in the immigration process An study by The Intercept during the first Trump administration revealed that students at a Long Island high school were disclosed to ICE for among other things wearing Chicago Bulls jersey and posting the Salvadoran flag on Facebook Several of the men shipped to the CECOT prison with Abrego Garcia appear to be detained under similarly flimsy gang affiliation alleges Federal law enforcement authorities reportedly rated them on a -point scale with a outcome of or more designating them a member of Tren de Aragua and thus instantly deportable since President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to alleged members of the gang Certain tattoos were points Another points could be added for notations drawing or dress known to indicate were allegiance to TDA On Thursday Sen Chris Van Hollen D-Md met with Abrego Garcia after traveling to El Salvador to check on his constituent s welfare and discuss his release My main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar Tonight I had that chance Van Hollen wrote on X I have called his wife Jennifer to pass along his message of love I look forward to providing a full update upon my return Mu iz disclosed she predicted that the Trump administration would use gang affiliation as a tool to fuel the president s mass deportation strategy and system of racialized state terror You don t need probable cause You don t need to prove this in court she stated It s a label you can apply very easily without criminal charges without really any proof And then once that person is labeled you can justify doing a lot of things with them like detaining them like deporting them The post The Evidence Linking Kilmar Abrego Garcia to MS- A Chicago Bulls Hat and a Hoodie appeared first on The Intercept