How Cold Is ICE?

A Concise Look At Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s Abduction

Time to weigh in on the ICE kidnappings. (And they are.)

TRUMP: “If they are criminals and hit people with baseball bats, if they rape 87 year old women, yeah. Yeah. That includes them. I'm all for it”.

This is the kind of language Trump and Republicans use to describe their ‘deportation targets’. They’re always horrible, violent people that no one could defend, I mean, raping an 87 year-old?

But, of course, no rapists are going to be sent to El Salvador, even if they’ve raped 87 year-olds. Nobody they send there is one of those criminals. Only a few are criminals at all. Of the 251 men sent with no due process to El Salvador’s brutal death camp, CECOT, less than 10% had any prior charges or convictions.

(You also can’t really say ‘deported’, because that means ‘taken to your country of origin and set free there’. This is straight up rendition- sent to a remote prison for an indefinite period with no due process. Most of the detainees were from Venezuela, not El Salvador.)

But, that doesn’t stop Republicans at every level from inventing heinous crimes out of whole cloth and attributing them to whoever they’re mad at.

And, of course, thousands of MAGAs per day are posting ‘why would you want murderers and rapists on the street?’

It’s an old conservative tactic, a horrible, evil monster straw man, to deflect away from a losing point.

Those who didn’t buy old LSD from the guy in the El Camino know that nobody wants murderers and rapists on the street, and everybody wants them arrested, charged, tried, convicted and punished by the law. Right?

Right?

RIGHT???

This is why Kilmar Abrego Garcia is so important. On March 15th, 2025, ICE dragged him out of his car with his young disabled son in the back seat and called his wife to come get the child. He was then flown to Texas to be sent to the notorious death camp CECOT in El Salvador with that planeload of immigrants, and, like them all, with no due process whatsoever.

He had, in fact, entered the US illegally at age 16 in 2011, and in 2019, got rousted by local cops along with a few others hanging out with the day-workers you see at every Home Depot. They sent him to Immigration- ICE.

Here’s what Elon’s Grok says about Garcia;

There is no strong evidence that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was a gang member. The U.S. government claimed he was part of MS-13, based on a confidential informant's statement and his clothing, but these have been criticized as weak. Judge Paula Xinis noted in April 2025 that the government presented "no evidence" of MS-13 ties.

Importantly, Abrego Garcia has never been charged or convicted of gang-related crimes. Some immigration judges used the informant’s claim to deny bond, but no court fully confirmed the allegations. The controversy continues, with the Trump administration asserting gang ties, while judicial findings lean against it.

Yes, it’s a pretty lame half-defense of Garcia, awkwardly trying to lean towards Trump, but it states unequivocally that there was no evidence or confirmation of gang involvement or any criminal charges.

His only offense was being here illegally, which is not a crime, but, a civil offense against the government, and the hearings were in immigration court, separate from criminal or civil court. All of the evidence about gang affiliations came as hearsay testimony in theses hearings.

Now, mind you, the nature of those hearings is relevant. Bond hearings happen after arrest, and can reoccur, which it did for him, during the period where his case was being assessed. It was an immigration judge in his bond hearings who considered the cherry-picked gang testimony, not at the hearing that granted his holding of removal. This important context is purposely left out.

He sought asylum, but was instead granted holding of removal because of the danger he faced from MS-13 in El Salvador, which was stipulated as the only country Garcia could not be deported to, and he was shown, again, by court and government documents not to have ever been charged or credibly alleged of any involvement in the MS-13 gang. He came to the US in 2011 to escape the MS-13 gang.

He sought and received his work permit, granted to him by Trump’s DHS. He even reported to ICE every year to renew it. For two years under Trump and four years under Biden, he was cleared to stay and work in the US. This required a criminal background check every year.

So, at this point, the whole thing can be considered to be contrived. Taking Abrego Garcia surely wasn’t accidental- obviously, his name was in their system. They knew who they were arresting, and likely had to know there were no warrants, charges or violations.

So, this was just a guy who’s name was in the system who could be found and easily taken. It may even have been an AI program that found him locatable and referenced to MS-13 from the bond hearings. If there were real charges, actual cops likely would have already arrested him by then, rather than ICE grabbing him off the street after being here since 2011 and after six years of living under ICE authority in full compliance.

He was, all told, legally in the United States, ‘erroneously’ (wrongly) taken, and his return has been demanded by the highest court in the land.

But, Trump says he can’t bring him back because he’s not in US custody, and El Salvador’s President Bukele, sitting right next to Trump on TV, said he can’t send the guy back because he can’t ‘smuggle a terrorist into the US’. (Nevermind how preposterous that is.)

It’s important to note here that El Salvador’s President Bukele is known to have been colluding with MS-13, allowing them free reign in return for some lessening of activity to make Bukele look like he was cleaning things up.

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and also a group of Republican representatives went down to El Salvador.

The Democrat from Maryland, Garcia’s state of residence, was seeking to meet with Garcia and confirm his well-being and try to secure his release. The Senator was flatly denied all access and told by their VP that Garcia could not be returned because the US had paid them to keep him. I know. He was finally able to meet with Garcia, who is, thankfully, still alive.

But, even that was pedestrian political theatre staged by El Salvador’s president. Giving Garcia a wash, a good shirt and a ball cap (??), and setting him up on a luxury hotel terrace to meet with the Senator, they even placed a couple of salt-rimmed cocktail glasses with cherries to make it look like Garcia was drinking Margaritas with Van Hollen, and they were ‘living it up in a tropical paradise’.

Meanwhile, the Republican delegation went to CECOT, the notorious death camp prison where the detainees are being held, and instead of asking to see Garcia, or any of the immigrants taken in the ICE purge, they posed for publicity shots with prisoners behind them, just as military cosplayer DHS Sec. Kristi ‘puppy killer’ Noem did immediately after the incident became known.

According to Trump, AG Bondi, Noem, SoS Rubio, advisor Navarro, and pond scum minister Volde-, er, Nosfera-,er, Stephen Miller, and now, speeding up from behind, press sec Leavitt, we are all supposed to believe that Garcia is a high ranking member of MS-13, a drug dealer, a wife beater, a terrorist and a human trafficker.

I mean, this is some record-breaking batshit conflation goin’ on here.

There’s no evidence of any of it, of course, the whole case relying solely on cherry-picked assumptions- like his clothing at the time of his arrest- a Chicago Bulls hat and a rap-style hoodie with pictures of money rolls on it, and questionable 2019 testimony from an informant relayed second hand by an officer who was fired and indicted for misconduct a mere month later.

The Bulls hat has now been called a ‘gang uniform’ item, I know, Bulls fans, what’re you gonna do? And the hoodie has been transformed into ‘arrested with drugs and rolls of money’.

A traffic stop where he didn’t even get a ticket is cited as ‘proof of human trafficking’.

A domestic argument led to a precautionary restraining order, and there were no charges, it was resolved and they got back together. (Meanwhile, DefSec Pete ‘Keg’seth has had multiple sexual abuse offenses.)

I mean, how is this incriminating? How many people, let alone immigrants in the US have tattoos, sport team hats, hoodies with pictures, traffic stops, even domestic complaints?

Answer- lots of people have some or all of these things and are not gang members or whatever heinous crime you want to pin on them just because they’re brown and speak Spanish. Case in point- the Proud Boys are just as tattooed, dress in coordinated military fashion with ball caps, carry weapons and espouse hatred, and they’re not considered a ‘gang’.

The entire stereotype of Garcia in the media is derived from cherry picking these items from an otherwise overwhelming avalanche of exonerating documents.

All of Trumps actions and statements are diametrically opposed to the truth of the victim, Abrego Garcia, the circumstances and the law.

But, that’s the point. To defeat the law, he must diametrically oppose it, and to do that, he must create indefensible targets to blame.

It didn’t have to be Garcia, but it did have to be someone here legally who could be mislabeled and exiled. The end game is to get rid of dissidents, such as Rumeysa Ozturk, being detained for an op-ed. Successfully banishing Garcia opens that door.

Nor should we forget Andry Hernandez Romero, the hairdresser from Venezuela taken for his tattoos and imprisoned along with Garcia.

The goal of this whole episode, then, is for Trump to show that he is above the law.

The Constitution, the US legal code, the federal courts and the damn Supreme Court have all said he has violated the law and must return Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Which is what he wanted them to do, so he could show everybody that he is the ultimate power.

He’s been dying to use the Andrew Jackson line- ‘let’s see them enforce it’.

“What are you gonna do? Send the DoJ? I own them. Send the FBI? The US Marshalls? I own them too. The military? Mine. You can’t touch me. I can’t break the law- I am the law.” (-tRump, any day now….)

This is his warning that from here on out, the courts, the law, and even Congress have no authority over him. He may do as he pleases. Period.

Very soon, well-known liberals may well begin to ‘disappear’. Some may have (forgive me) literally ‘Trumped’ up charges of treason or sedition. But, they won’t come from a judge.

Even bloggers can be targets just for saying that Trump is a pompous, lying, batshit crazy criminal idiot. (Oops, there I go again!)

Like they did for Garcia, they’ll charge these liberal personas in the media ‘after the fact’,- as an excuse for why a popular person was exiled.

And, that’s the most dangerous part- the part that liberals and centrists are warning about- if they can do this to a person who their own records say they can’t do it to-

- they can and will do it to anyone.

The point of the El Salvador scheme is to squash opposition through fear of banishment to a foreign concentration camp, and to cement power all across the government.

So, undesirables disappear, propaganda is fact, knowledge is sedition, the law protects the wealthy and binds the poor.

And, Trump rakes in the cash while basking in fearful adulation.

If you find yourself trying to resist equating it with fascism and the Nazis and sending Jews to concentration camps in Poland instead of Germany, don’t.

That’s exactly what’s going on.

c.2025 Cousin B