The Federalist.
The ‘Maryland Man’ Hoax Is Designed To Criminalize Immigration Enforcement.
By convincing Americans illegal aliens are indistinguishable from citizens, the left is hoping to delegitimize any attempt to enforce our immigration laws while making Americans feel morally conflicted about their right to do so.
The propaganda press’s latest manufactured sob story isn’t just another hit piece targeting President Donald Trump — it’s part of a manufactured, strategic campaign to guilt Americans out of supporting immigration enforcement and delegitimize the very concept of national borders.
Last month the Trump administration deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien and alleged MS-13 gang member from El Salvador — to a prison in El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia crossed the border illegally in 2011 and was detained in March of 2019. He was charged with removability and was later denied bond when an immigration judge concluded that evidence “show[ed] [Abrego Garcia] is a verified member of MS-13” and found that he failed to prove “that his release from custody would not pose a danger to others.” As explained by Will Chamberlain, senior counsel at the Article 3 Project, Abrego filed an asylum claim six months later. In turn, a judge ruled Abrego Garcia could not be deported to El Salvador. As Chamberlain explained, “Any third country would be sufficient.”
Following legal challenges, “The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court’s decision to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison,” as reported by Fox News.
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, said he had no plans to send Garcia back to the United States. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” Bukele told reporters on Monday. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
But reading the headlines from the left-wing media, one would think the administration snatched a soccer dad off the streets of Baltimore.
The Associated Press’s Seung Min Kim and Marcos Alemán wrote, “El Salvador President Bukele says he won’t be releasing a Maryland man back to the US.” Politico’s Myah Ward and Eli Stokols wrote, “El Salvador won’t return wrongly deported Maryland man.” The New York Times’ Zolan Kanno-Youngs wrote, “El Salvador’s Leader Says He Won’t Return Wrongly Deported Maryland Man.” And NBC News ran the headline “El Salvador won’t return Maryland man to the U.S …”
This “reporting” wasn’t sloppy journalism; it was a deliberate reframing designed to erase the distinction between criminal deportation and family separation, between illegal alien and U.S. citizen. And it isn’t just the left-wing legacy media spreading the misinformation — Democrats joined in, treating the alleged MS-13 member like some long-lost neighbor.
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen said he “intend[s] to go to El Salvador this week to check on Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s condition and discuss his release.”
“Kilmar was illegally ABDUCTED and deported by the Trump admin. He must be brought home NOW.”
But it was Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s post on X that said the quiet part out loud: “If President Trump can wrongly deport a Maryland father to a prison in El Salvador and then defy a 9-0 Supreme Court order to facilitate bringing him home, who’s next?”
“This threatens the rights and freedoms of everyone in the United States,” she continued.
And there it is. The entire “Maryland man” hoax isn’t about the single deportation of an illegal alien illegally residing in the United States — it’s simply being exploited by the left in their psychological operation designed to gin up opposition to Trump and terrify Americans into ceding their right to reclaim their sovereignty and deport foreign nationals.
The left is trying to reframe immigration enforcement itself as dangerous and illegitimate in order to build a narrative that any enforcement of national borders or immigration laws is authoritarian overreach.
By convincing Americans that illegal aliens are indistinguishable from citizens — or fathers from Maryland — the left is hoping to delegitimize any attempt to enforce our immigration laws while making Americans feel morally conflicted about their right to do so. And such a strategy depends on misinformation like that being spread about Abrego Garcia. By referring to the alleged criminal gang member as merely a “Maryland man,” the media and Democratic officials shift the focus from national security to emotional appeals.
It’s not just an attack on immigration enforcement — it’s an attack on the very idea that nations have the right to define and defend their own borders.
But Americans shouldn’t fall for it. Sovereignty isn’t merely a policy issue — it’s the bedrock of a functioning republic. When the left-wing propaganda press and Democrats erase key facts from headlines, they aren’t just attacking Trump — they’re attacking the principle that citizenship matters at all.
In turning any attempt to uphold immigration law into an act of cruelty or tyranny, the left is laying the groundwork for a world where borders are meaningless and citizenship is just a formality.
http://thefederalist.com/2025/04/15/the-maryland-man-hoax-is-designed-to-criminalize-immigration-enforcement/
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