Is there an end in sight for the legal wrangling over Kilmar Abrego Garcia? A late Wednesday move by Judge Xinis may indicate that something is afoot.

The more time passes, the more that Democrats keep making fools of themselves over this single case. After the visit by Senator Chris Van Hollen, now dubbed “Margarita-gate,” the senator returned to the United States to do the full Ginsburg on the Sunday talk shows – where he promptly fell down on his face regarding Abrego Garcia’s gang status. Even Dana Bash of CNN couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing.

Bash questioned Van Hollen directly on Sunday’s edition of CNN’s State of the Union.

“Now, President Trump says that some of Abrego Garcia’s tattoos signify that he’s a member of MS-13,” Bash said. “In 2019, police alleged a confidential informant claimed that Abrego Garcia was an active MS-13 member. His wife and his attorney deny that, of course. Can you say with absolute certainty that he is not, nor has he ever been a member of the MS-13 gang? And did you ask him point-blank?”

Van Hollen did not answer the question directly.

“Well, Dana, what Donald Trump is trying to do here is change the subject,” he replied. “The subject at hand is that he and his administration are defying a court order to give Abrego Garcia his due process rights. They are trying to litigate on social media what they should be doing in the courts. They need to put up or shut up in the courts.”

Van Hollen referred to a federal court ruling on the matter.

“Let me tell you—and I decided to write this down so I could be absolutely accurate as to what federal district court Judge Xinis said about these allegations by the Trump administration: ‘No evidence linking Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or any terrorist activity has been presented to the court.’”

Bash responded by pressing Van Hollen further on the issue.

She said, “But since you were the one person to have met with him and since this is a thing, you say, on social media, it’s what we hear from Donald Trump and Republicans every day all day long, you didn’t ask him?”

Van Hollen replied, “I didn’t ask him that because I know what his answer is.”

https://twitter.com/WesternLensman/status/1913945751824240693
Van Hollen didn’t ask the question because he doesn’t want the wrong answer. The Prince George’s County Police Department gang unit has released their memo detailing their encounter with Abrego Garcia that identified him as MS-13 back in 2019. More photos, provided by Abrego Garcia’s wife, show very clearly the finger tattoos on him that President Trump pointed out in the Oval Office as being proof of his MS-13 affiliation. And while the questions over his gang membership continue, more evidence has emerged that makes it look even more certain that Abrego Garcia was involved in human trafficking when he was pulled over in 2022.

When Abrego Garcia was stopped in 2022 by the Tennessee state trooper, Homeland Security intelligence created a record of the encounter, Just the News reported. The El Salvadoran was driving a black 2001 Chevrolet Suburban and said he was transporting his passengers to Maryland from Texas for construction work, although the state trooper found no luggage in the SUV.

Homeland Security documents identified the owner of the vehicle as Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes. Abrego Garcia told the state trooper that the owner was his boss. However, that SUV was flagged separately by the Homeland Security Investigations Baltimore field office as belonging to a target they suspected of human trafficking or smuggling, the documents show.

“Vehicle is used by HSI Baltimore target in human smuggling/trafficking operation. Vehicle makes trips to southern border to pick up non-citizens,” the record reads. The memo says the Baltimore HSI case agent should be notified if the vehicle is encountered.

Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, who Abrego Garcia claimed he was working for, had been previously convicted of smuggling illegal aliens into the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security also confirmed this report to the New York Post. Not exactly the “quiet life” for a simple “Maryland man,” is it?

Four House Democrats who have zero connection to Maryland (at least Van Hollen claimed the fig leaf of “constituent” for his visit) had their visit request rejected by President Nayib Bukele, who pointed out that since their request for an official visit was denied, they had no standing to ask to see Abrego Garcia.

Now, some Democrats are apparently wondering about the wisdom of continuing to champion this particular case, especially when there are other issues where they could legitimately oppose the Trump administration’s actions.

Four House progressives arrived in El Salvador on Monday to push for Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S., following Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who made the trek to the Central American country last week and met with the mistakenly deported man. The group has framed the effort as pushing back on a threat to basic constitutional rights.

“This is about due process; it’s about ensuring that we follow the laws of this country,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) said Tuesday, after returning from El Salvador.

Few Democratic lawmakers have publicly disputed that premise as they slam President Trump’s defiance of a Supreme Court ruling ordering the White House to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.

But some describe the administration’s focus on the issue as a deliberate distraction from other news, including the dwindling stock market, rising price of groceries and widespread confusion over Trump’s tariff policies.

“People can’t afford eggs, and … you’re flying to sit with someone who’s accused of being in a gang,” one Democratic operative told The Hill. “Republicans have given us such an opportunity with DOGE and … with Trump tanking the economy. Obviously, you can walk and chew gum at the same time, but I don’t think we can take our eyes off the prize in terms of talking about real, real world impacts and how people are being hurt in their everyday lives by some of these policies.”

The public relations battle has been running parallel to the legal battle – but the legal battle was abruptly paused on Wednesday evening, when Judge Paula Xinis granted a stay of one week on the discovery process, after the Trump administration filed a sealed motion. Obviously, since the motion was sealed, we don’t know what the administration said. However, it was obviously convincing enough for Xinis – no fan of the Trump administration – to stay the case for the moment. Margot Cleveland of The Federalist is speculating that the administration may be preparing to make a move on the case.

2/ Trump Administrations said it is working closely with El Salvador to arrange for Garcia's release & that it cannot disclose more details & in fact such disclosure could scuttle efforts to get Garcia released. Simultaneously, Trump is arranging for hop flight return to U.S.

— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) April 24, 2025

3/3 that then takes Garcia to Guatemala, Rwanda, or Gitmo.

— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) April 24, 2025

That’s an awful lot of speculation, but would the judge accept anything else but a negotiation to pull Abrego Garcia out of El Salvador and back into American custody? Given her track record, that seems unlikely. Now, if Abrego Garcia does make it back to the United States (frankly, I think they should stop at Guantanamo Bay and hold any legal hearings there under American control), he will not be released under any circumstances, so he isn’t going back to his “quiet life” in Maryland to continue living. There will probably be a final court hearing to confirm the previous deportation order, and then a decision on whether the withholding order preventing him from being deported back to his native El Salvador is still valid. Then, a decision will need to be made about where to send him, and what country would accept him.

Democrats could have been making a “due process” argument on the withholding order technicality the entire time. Instead, they decided to grandstand and champion a guy that was identified as a gang member, whose wife filed protective orders against him, and was almost certainly participating in human trafficking. Their attempts to avoid answering questions about any unfortunate facts makes them look willfully ignorant, and wasted a whole lot of time and political capital on this one guy. That the Democrats went this far off the rails in this one case speaks to just how rudderless and leaderless the party is right now.

Featured image via succo on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license