Let's Get Granular, Shall We? Yes, Let's... People In The US Need Not Comply With "Show Me Your Papers" Demands -- From Local Traffic/Beat Cops...

First -- EmptyWheel will now do a two parter (part one is up already), on the indictment particulars, and the inconsistencies there -- with the detention motion. Do go read hers; they are much better than mine, below.

But I write here -- on mid-Saturday morning -- to make some plain English, common sense observations. These observations should give sensible Americans pause -- about what the government will ever be able to prove, as to Mr. Abrego Garcia. And there is no need to assume that the Tennessee troopers falsified evidence in any manner.

I will accept for now (unless shown otherwise) that the bodycam footage from that November 2022 traffic stop (a speeding ticket, near Cookeville) is genuine.

First -- inside the US, at least more than 100 miles from any international border (which middle Tennessee clearly is), any person / passenger who is NOT DRIVING a vehicle is in no manner required, as a passenger, to carry ANY ID. The police may ask to see any ID a passenger may be carrying, once a valid stop is initiated -- but no adverse inference may be drawn from a failure to have ID, or even a refusal to provide an ID (absent other idicia of lawlessness), even if one has one, on his/her person.

Second, Mr. Abrego Garcia (or KAG, for short) may have been speeding. But he paid that ticket over three years ago. And that's definitively the end of the state law traffic matter. He effectively pled guilty by paying (assuming it was actually him, in the first place).

Third, Kristi Noem claimed in late March that he was picked up -- as a lethal gang member. There was no warrant; no judicial involvement of any kind. But she had exactly zero evidence of any gang involvement at the time. And she had him flown to an offshore hell-hole without even a parade before an ALJ. She effectively kidnapped him off the streets of Baltimore.

At that late March date, he possessed a 2019 US court order (never rescinded) forbidding any ICE or DHS moves to take him out of our country. She willfully violated that 2019 order.

Ultimately, the US Supreme Court ordered Noem to promptly return him to the US, to have a due process hearing -- since even she admitted it was "a mistake" to take him away to El Salvador, without a hearing.

Noem then dragged her feet for over two months, before obeying that Supreme Court order.

During that time, Tangerine 2.0 forces resurrected the 2022 traffic stop, and made wild-eyed accusations -- well beyond anything they can prove in court -- about the nature of the people (now gone) in the van.

Likely having threatened some supposed "co-conspirators" (men already in US custody, as MS-13 gang members, on competent evidence) with being dumped in the hell-hole CEDOT, down in El Salvador, Noem ONLY NOW claims she has at least one "witness" who will G for her whole "conspiracy to traffick humans" (by KAG) story.

She claims it will place KAG as at least a hired driver (as of 2022). But again, why should we take the word of one "witness" who is trying solely to save his own skin (and stay inside the US prison system -- to avoid a torture prison offshore)?

In sum, this is very thin gruel. And the grand jury wasn't impaneled until two months after KAG was taken, without process -- in any event. That is undisputed.

Now consider that in mid-April, under oath, the Noem lawyers, in a status update, said that they would eventually comply with the US Supreme Court order by bringing him to a US prison near the Southern California/Mexico border -- and have an ALJ order him deported for "lies" -- to the Mexican side of the border, below San Diego.

There was no allegation -- let alone proof offered -- of any charge of trafficking (back in April) -- and the Grand Jury didn't indict until a week or so ago. Finally, no judge has rescinded KAG's 2019 "no removal" order. That supposed move outside San Diego, itself, by Noem -- would thus be. . . wildly unlawful.

All of this -- fairly reviewed, with a sober and reasonable eye -- strongly suggests ICE / DHS (after the fact) cooked the whole Nashville indictment thing up -- after realizing that the kidnapping of people off US streets (people with lawful orders not to be removed). . . is a bad look.

More, when EW posts her part two. Onward, resolutely.

Mr. Abrego Garcia may win his freedom to stay in the USA, yet.

नमस्ते