Trump says he could bring back Ábrego García but won't
At a rally to mark his 100th day in office, the president doubled down on his unpopular immigration and economic policies
What happened
President Donald Trump marked his 100th day in office Tuesday with a campaign-style rally in Michigan where he defended his increasingly unpopular economic policies and celebrated his hard-line immigration crackdown. In an interview with ABC News broadcast last night, Trump said he could bring wrongly deported migrant Kilmar Ábrego García back from El Salvador but would not, despite a Supreme Court order to "facilitate" his return.
Who said what
"I could" bring Ábrego García home with one phone call, "and if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that," Trump told ABC's Terry Moran. "But he's not" and "I'm not the one making this decision. We have lawyers that don't want to do this." Trump's comments "not only undermined previous statements by his top aides" that Ábrego García was out of his reach, The New York Times said, but they were also a "blunt sign of his administration's intention to double down and defy the courts."
Moran said the case was "about the rule of law" and due process, noting that "the order from the Supreme Court stands." Trump asserted that Ábrego García was a member of the gang MS-13, pointing to images of tattoos on his fingers that his administration claims are code for "MS-13." The president repeatedly insisted that the tattoos literally spell out MS-13 and berated Moran for pointing out, correctly, that the gang name was added with "Photoshop." Ábrego García has "MS-13 on his knuckles" as "clear as you can be. Not 'interpreted,'" Trump said. "This is why people no longer believe the news, because it's fake news."
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Trump "gets higher marks on his performance on immigration than on any other issue" in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, with 45% of respondents approving of his handling and 48% disapproving, Reuters said. "Democrats and civil rights advocates have criticized Trump's heightened enforcement tactics, including the cases of several children who are U.S. citizens who were recently deported with their parents."
What next?
“This is the best, they say, start of any president in history,” Trump said at his Michigan rally. "You haven't seen anything yet."
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