Garcia names staff director for Oversight
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
Ocasio-Cortez move to forgo run at Oversight scrambles race to replace Connolly
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s decision to forgo a bid for the top Democratic seat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has sparked a series of behind-the-scenes maneuvers. The jockeying sets the stage for what could potentially be an animated contest pitting veteran, old-guard lawmakers against a younger, newer crop of Democrats seeking more influence over the party’s policy and messaging decisions. Rep. Stephen Lynch (Mass.), a senior member of the panel, was handpicked to serve as interim ranking member while Connolly is treated for the esophageal cancer that forced him recently to step back from his daily responsibilities. Lynch has made clear that he wants to fill the seat permanently whenever Connolly, the 75-year-old who is not seeking reelection next year, vacates the seat for good. But a Lynch victory is no slam dunk on a committee stacked with younger members eager to advance. Some members of the committee say Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) has been in talks about a potential run.
The jockeying sets the stage for what could potentially be an animated contest pitting veteran, old-guard lawmakers against a younger, newer crop of Democrats seeking more influence over the party’s policy and messaging decisions.
Rep. Stephen Lynch (Mass.), a senior member of the panel, was handpicked to serve as interim ranking member while Connolly is treated for the esophageal cancer that forced him recently to step back from his daily responsibilities. And Lynch has made clear that he wants to fill the seat permanently whenever Connolly, the 75-year-old who is not seeking reelection next year, vacates the seat for good.
But a Lynch victory is no slam dunk on a committee stacked with younger members eager to advance. Some of those figures were ready to defer to Ocasio-Cortez if she decided to run. But the liberal superstar is no longer on the committee, having jumped to the Energy and Commerce panel after an unsuccessful race against Connolly for the party’s top Oversight spot last December. And Tuesday, she announced she won’t try again, saying the Democrats’ long-held tradition of prioritizing seniority had dimmed her chances of winning.
Her surprise decision has changed the game, triggering a lively round of private discussions about the future face of Oversight not only among lawmakers on the panel but also among members of the broader caucus who will ultimately vote to decide Connolly’s replacement.
“At this point, I feel like half the committee is wanting to run for the seat,” said Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), a former Oversight member.
Among the first names bubbling up is Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), a 47-year-old former Long Beach mayor just elected to his second term on Capitol Hill. Garcia said this week that, even after Ocasio-Cortez’s announcement, it’s too early to speculate about the ranking member spot while Connolly still officially holds it.
“Right now, we’re all focused on Gerry’s health,” Garcia said. “There’s no election, so I think it’s premature.”
Yet other members of the committee say Garcia has been in talks about a potential run. And some are already pushing for him to jump in.
“I hear from so many members across the ideological spectrum on the Oversight Committee encouraging Robert Garcia to make a run, because he brings the talents of a newer member and being an amazing communicator, but he’s viewed as a team player,” said one Oversight Democrat who spoke anonymously to discuss a sensitive topic.
“His experience as mayor and managing an executive staff in Long Beach, Calif., paired with his ability to communicate to so many different members of the caucus — I’m just hearing from all sorts of folks advocating for him.”
Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), in her third term, is another name mentioned in the mix. But like Garcia, she told reporters this week it’s “too early” to discuss transition plans while Connolly remains the ranking member.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), 44, another up-and-coming second-term Democrat, has been less bashful about her interest in the Oversight seat — a prominent spot for the minority party to hone attacks on Trump and the more unpopular elements of his policy agenda. Crockett told CNN this week that she’s the perfect fit for the job.
“I don’t know that I’m the future of the Democratic Party, but I do know that, in this moment, we need people that are unafraid and willing to go after this administration for the good of the entirety of the country,” Crockett told the network. “And I think that that is an opportunity that I would have sitting as the ranker on Oversight.”
Lynch, for his part, is touting his long experience on Capitol Hill, where he’s now in his 25th year, while emphasizing that Connolly has vowed to back him publicly when the time comes. Yet Lynch, 70, is hardly ignoring the Democrats’ internal debate over generational change, and he’s quick to acknowledge the importance of empowering younger members and tapping the unique skills they bring to the table, not least their proficiencies on social media.
“I am interested in putting our younger members in a position where they can have an impact,” he said.
The timing of the transition remains very much in flux. Connolly has made clear he wants to keep the seat indefinitely, especially while Trump and Elon Musk continue their efforts to fire federal workers, many of whom Connolly represents in his Northern Virginia district. And Lynch said there’s little appetite among Democratic leaders to stage a potentially contentious internal election while Republicans are fighting among themselves over the fate of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
“If there’s a vacancy, the vice chair and I will call an election in accordance with House Democratic Caucus rules,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), the chair of the caucus, told reporters Tuesday. “But there’s no vacancy at this point.”
As the debate rages on, at least one House Democratic rising star says he won’t seek Connolly’s seat. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) had initially said he was awaiting Ocasio-Cortez’s decision before deciding if he would launch a bid of his own. But Tuesday, after she had broadcast her plan to remain on Energy and Commerce, Frost said he’ll also sit this round out.
“I have a leadership position; I want to focus on that,” Frost said. “I’ve heard there’s a lot of people thinking about it. But I want to see exactly who’s committed to running before I commit” my support.
Trump’s team acknowledges ‘administrative error’ led to deportation to El Salvador
Kilmar Armando Abrego-Garcia, a resident of Beltsville, Maryland, was among the hundreds of alleged members of crime gangs MS-13 and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua. His wife, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, and his 5-year-old disabled child, filed a lawsuit March 24 calling for his return. The U.S. government acknowledged Monday “an administrative error” led to the deportation of a native of El Salvador but the government has no interest in returning the alleged member of MS- 13 to his wife and his child with a disability, according to court documents. “This removal was an error,” Robert Cerna, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s acting field office director for enforcement and removal operations, said in a sworn statement. “Foreign terrorists have no legal protections in the United States of America,” Leavitt said. � “These are vicious criminals. This is a vicious gang,” he said.
The Trump administration acknowledged Monday “an administrative error” led to the deportation of a native of El Salvador but the government has no interest in returning the alleged member of MS-13 to his wife and his child with a disability, according to court documents.
Kilmar Armando Abrego-Garcia, a resident of Beltsville, Maryland, was among the hundreds of alleged members of crime gangs MS-13 and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua the government expelled from the U.S. to El Salvador on March 15.
But he had won a court order from an immigration judge in 2019 that was supposed to prevent his removal. His wife, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, and his 5-year-old disabled child, who are both U.S. citizens, filed a lawsuit March 24 calling for his return.
In filings Monday, government officials acknowledged the administrative mistake that sent Garcia to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
“This removal was an error,” Robert Cerna, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s acting field office director for enforcement and removal operations, said in a sworn statement.
Trump administration officials defend deportation policy
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday that despite the clerical error, Abrego-Garcia was considered an alleged ringleader of MS-13 and a suspected human trafficker. She said immigration judges work for Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has committed to eradicating MS-13.
“Foreign terrorists have no legal protections in the United States of America,” Leavitt said. “These are vicious criminals. This is a vicious gang.”
The lawsuit from Abrego-Garcia’s wife contends he is not a member of MS-13 or any other gang. He has never been charged or convicted of any crimes in El Salvador or the United States, the lawsuit said. “Although he has been accused of general ‘gang affiliation,’ the U.S. government has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation,” the lawsuit said.
Vice President JD Vance said in a post Tuesday on social media that Abrego-Garcia had “no legal right” to be in the U.S. In another post Vance said he failed to appear in court for “multiple traffic violations.”
“The man is an illegal immigrant with no right to be in our country,” Vance said.
The Atlantic magazine was the first to report on the case.
MS-13 case comes amid legal challenges to Trump deportations
The case comes amid legal challenges to the Trump administration’s mass deportations. President Donald Trump declared MS-13 and Tren de Aragua foreign terrorist organizations and moved to remove alleged members under a variety of immigration statutes.
Trump also invoked the Alien Enemies Act to remove alleged members of Tren de Aragua more hastily. But Chief U.S. Judge James Boasberg temporarily blocked the deportations under the Alien Enemies Act until the suspects had been given a chance to deny their membership in the gang. The Trump administration has appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Abrego-Garcia was ordered deported in in March 2019, after a confidential informant testified that he was an active member of the MS-13 gang, according to government lawyers.
Abrego-Garcia then applied for asylum, asking for protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture if he were returned to El Salvador. An immigration judge found he was deportable, but withheld his removal in October 2019.
ICE stopped Abrego-Garcia on March 12, telling him that his immigration status had changed, according to his wife’s lawsuit. After being detained and questioned, he was sent to Harlingen, Texas, where he was flown under Title 8 of the immigration laws to El Salvador’s CECOT prison.
His wife recognized him among detainees in a video from the prison because of his tattoos and head scars, according to the lawsuit.
Cerna said the deportations to El Salvador were designed to include only people who faced no impediments to removal. Abrego-Garcia had been an alternate on the flight but moved up on the list as others were dropped off.
“Through administrative error, Abrego-Garcia was removed from the United States to El Salvador,” Cerna said. “This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13.”
Government lawyers said Abrego-Garcia has been found a danger to the community so the public interest is against ordering the government “to orchestrate his return to the United States.”
Trump ICE official admits “administrative error” in deporting man to El Salvador prison
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was removed from the U.S. on March 15 as part of a series of deportation flights. An immigration judge had granted him a legal protection from deportation. The government has argued that he’s a danger to the community, alleging he’s an MS-13 gang member. The Justice Department has also argued that federal courts lack the authority to facilitate his return, since he’s now being held by the Salvadoran government and no longer in U.s. custody.. “It is telling you that the entire American media is going to run a propaganda operation,” Homeland Security spokesman says of the deportation. “We are not going to back down on this issue,” he adds. “He should be locked up in El Salvador or a detention facility or a jail in the United States,” he says of Abre go Garcia, who left his native country in 2011 at age 16. “The allegations against him are based on whispers and shadows,” his lawyer says of his client’s gang affiliation.
Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office director Robert Cerna said that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was removed from the U.S. on March 15 as part of a series of deportation flights that sent hundreds of alleged gang members to a notorious prison in El Salvador, even though an immigration judge had granted him a legal protection from deportation.
Those flights are at the center of a court battle between the Justice Department and U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, who blocked further deportations of alleged Tren de Aragua gang members under the Trump administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
The March 15 deportation flights transported 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans, all of whom Trump administration officials described as members of the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs. Lawyers and relatives of many of the Venezuelans have strongly denied claims that their clients and loved ones are gang members.
The filings were made as part of a suit filed by attorneys for Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man and Maryland resident who received a legal status known as “withholding of removal” in 2019 after an immigration judge found that Abrego Garcia, who left his native country in 2011 at age 16, could face persecution by gangs if deported to El Salvador. His case was first reported by The Atlantic late Monday.
Although the Trump administration concedes it made a mistake when it deported Abrego Garcia, it is opposing a request for him to be brought back to the U.S. The government has argued Abrego Garcia is a danger to the community, alleging that he’s a member of the MS-13 gang.
The Justice Department has also argued that federal courts lack the authority to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, since he’s now being held by the Salvadoran government and no longer in U.S. custody. Even if they did have the power to order his return, the Justice Department said in a filing, there has been “no showing that El Salvador is even inclined to consider a request to release a detainee at the United States’ request.”
Attorney Simon Sandoval-Mosheberg called the Trump administration’s refusal to try to get his client back “appalling.”
“I’ve had wrongful deportation cases before, including in the last Trump administration and in every single such case, as soon as they realize what they’ve done, they bent over backwards,” he told CBS News.
Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland, alongside his wife and their disabled 5-year-old son, both of whom are U.S. citizens, according to the court filings submitted by his lawyers. Before he was arrested by ICE last month, Abrego Garcia was routinely attending check-ins with the agency, the filings said. His lawyers said he has no criminal record in the U.S., a finding the government has not disputed.
In 2019, Abrego Garcia was standing outside of a Home Depot in Hyattsville, Maryland, soliciting work with three other men when he was arrested. His attorney said he was questioned about whether he was a gang member, and when he told police he was not, the police said they didn’t believe him and said they were calling ICE.
During immigration proceedings, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said the only evidence the government provided in support of his gang affiliation was that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie and that a confidential informant said he was an active MS-13 member in a branch of the gang that operates on Long Island, New York, where Abrego Garcia’s attorneys say he has never lived.
“He’s not a gang member. The allegations against him are based on whispers and shadows,” Sandoval-Mosheberg said.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys wrote in their initial complaint that their client’s name was not included in a Hyattsville City Police Department report about the Home Depot arrest, and said that the detective who authored the gang affiliation part of the report had been suspended.
An immigration judge ruled that the informant’s testimony was “proven and reliable,” but said that he should not be deported to El Salvador.
In a statement Tuesday, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Abrego Garcia is “a member of the brutal MS-13 gang and was reportedly involved in human trafficking. Whether he be in El Salvador or a detention facility in the U.S. he should be locked up.”
Vice President JD Vance responded to media reports about the deportation on Tuesday, posting on X that “It is telling that the entire American media is going to run a propaganda operation today making you think an innocent ‘father of 3’ was apprehended by a gulag,” adding that Abrego Garcia “is an illegal immigrant with no right to be in our country.”
contributed to this report.
Ice blames ‘error’ for deportation of man with protected legal status
Kilmer Armado Ábrego Garcia is a Salvadoran national who lived in Maryland with his wife and their five-year-old child. He is currently detained at Cecot, the notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, after he was deported by the Trump administration on 15 March. The administration said it is unable to bring him back because US courts lack jurisdiction now that he is in Salvadoran custody. At the time, immigration officials claimed that a confidential informant had told them that he “was an active member of the criminal gang MS-13”, an accusation that he has denied. He was granted “withholding of removal to El Salvador” by an immigration judge in October 2019, a protected status that prevents an individual being returned to their home country if they can show that there’s a “more likely than not” risk that they will be harmed. But last month, on 12 March, he was stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, who they say “informed him that his immigration status had changed”
The administration also said it is unable to bring him back because US courts lack jurisdiction now that he is in Salvadoran custody.
The man, Kilmer Armado Ábrego Garcia, is a Salvadoran national who resided in Maryland with his wife and their five-year-old child.
Ábrego Garcia, who has had protected legal status since 2019, is currently detained at Cecot, the notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, after he was deported by the Trump administration on 15 March.
In the court filing, Ábrego Garcia’s attorneys said that Ice had initially attempted to deport him in 2019. At the time, immigration officials claimed that a confidential informant had told them that Ábrego Garcia “was an active member of the criminal gang MS-13”, an accusation that he has denied.
That year, Ábrego Garcia contested the claims and efforts to deport him and filed an application for asylum.
According to the court filing, Ábrego-Garcia was granted “withholding of removal to El Salvador” by an immigration judge in October 2019, a protected status that prevents an individual being returned to their home country if they can show that there’s a “more likely than not” risk that they will be harmed.
But last month, on 12 March, Ábrego Garcia’s attorneys say that he was stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, who they say “informed him that his immigration status had changed”.
Ábrego Garcia’s attorneys said in the filing that “Ice was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador”.
“After being detained, he was questioned about gang affiliations and transferred ultimately to a detention center in Texas,” the court filing states – and then deported to El Salvador on 15 March. He was deported on the third of three deportation flights to the country that took place that day, which are now at the center of an intense legal battle in which the Trump administration has been ordered to demonstrate how it did not violate a federal judge’s halt on the flights.
His deportation was first reported on Monday by The Atlantic.
“Ábrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” the filing states.
Then on Monday, acting Ice field office director Robert Cerna described the deportation in a court declaration as “an error”. He said that Ábrego Garcia was “not on the initial manifest of the … flight to be removed to El Salvador” but “rather, he was an alternate”.
As other detainees “were removed from the flight for various reasons”, Ábrego Garcia “moved up the list and was assigned to the flight”, Cerna said.
He added: “The manifest did not indicate that Ábrego Garcia should not be removed.
“Through administrative error, Ábrego Garcia was removed from the United States to El Salvador. This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Ábrego Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13.
This removal was an error.”
In the filing, the administration said that it no longer has custody of Ábrego Garcia and therefore does not have ability to bring him back to the US.
Ábrego Garcia’s attorneys wrote that – on 16 March – his wife identified him in a photograph in a news article showing individuals entering Cecot.
Ábrego Garcia’s wife and relatives then filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on his behalf.
In the initial complaint, Ábrego Garcia’s attorneys said that he denied he was a member of any “criminal or street gang” and said that the US government “has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation”.
On Monday night, JD Vance defended the deportation of Ábrego Garcia in a post on X, arguing – without offering evidence – that he had “no legal right to be here”.
Ábrego Garcia’s ordeal is one of several immigration-related episodes to make headlines in the US in recent days.
On Monday, a state judge in Boston dismissed a criminal case against a man who had been detained mid-trial by Ice agents. The judge found that the Ice agent involved had demonstrated “egregious conduct”, was in contempt of court and referred him to local prosecutors, according to Boston 25 News.
The judge said it would be up to prosecutors whether they pursue criminal charges against the agent.
Meanwhile, community members in the Chicago area are rallying in support of two brothers from Venezuela, one of whom was detained by Ice agents. One of the brothers is in need of a kidney transplant, and his sibling was planning to be his donor before Ice detained him, as reported by NBC News.
The detained brother has been in custody for weeks and faces deportation.
Furthermore, over the weekend, a woman from Mexico in Michigan was arrested on immigration-related charges after she went to the police to report that she was assaulted at her job.
According to the Detroit Free Press, immigration officials were not aware that she lived in Michigan until she went to local police in February to report the assault allegation.
Source: https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/06/25/congress/garcia-staff-director-edmonson-00423272