Ted Cruz mocks ‘crazy town’ Dems, as Maryland senator gets defensive about advocacy for alleged MS-13 member

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, mocked “crazy town” Democrats for defending illegal immigrants like alleged MS-13 gang member and Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia over U.S. citizens, saying that many seem to have an incurable case of Trump derangement syndrome.

Cruz’s comments came after several Democratic lawmakers, including Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, traveled to El Salvador to advocate for Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. after he was deported to his home country. The remarks also came just before Newark, N.J., Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested Friday after joining several members of Congress in storming an ICE detention facility.

“It is a very bizarre political decision that the Democrats have made,” Cruz said. “They have decided that they are the party of illegal immigrants and the party of gang members.”

“The vast majority of Americans,” he went on, “don’t want more gang members and violent criminals in this country, and it really is a shame the Democrats have gotten so extreme in their hatred of Donald Trump that the one thing they can stand for is more illegals and more gang members.”

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Bringing up Van Hollen’s and other Democrats’ trips to El Salvador on behalf of Abrego Garcia, Cruz said: “We’re seeing Democrat senators, Democrat house members flying down to El Salvador and putting all their political capital behind the position that we need more illegal immigrants in America, we need more criminals in America, and we need more MS-13 gang members in America.”

“I think Trump derangement syndrome is a real mental illness,” he went on. “I think they hate Donald Trump so much that it has driven them to crazy town. . . . Why is it that Democrats care so much about supporting violent criminal illegal aliens, they care so much about supporting MS-13 gang members?”

Though many Democrats claim that Abrego Garcia is an innocent man who was wrongly deported, the administration has pointed to considerable evidence that he is a member of the MS-13 gang.

According to police and court records shared with Fox News Digital, Abrego Garcia was arrested in Hyattsville, Maryland, in October 2019, at which point he was identified by the Prince George’s County Police Gang Unit as an MS-13 gang member. 

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A federal immigration court in Baltimore further determined that Abrego Garcia was not eligible for release, because he had “failed to meet his burden of demonstrating that his release from custody would not pose a danger to others, as the evidence shows that he is a verified member of MS-13.”

Several DHS sources have confirmed to Fox News Digital records indicating that Abrego Garcia also had been pulled over by a Tennessee highway patrol trooper while driving an SUV belonging to Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, another illegal alien who in 2020 confessed to human smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border.

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Fox News Digital has also reviewed court documents filed by Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, alleging that he had seriously beaten and verbally abused her multiple times and mentally abused her children.

In April, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision ordering the Trump administration to arrange Abrego Garcia’s return. 

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The court required the “government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” 

The Trump administration agreed to clear any administrative obstacles keeping Abrego Garcia from returning to the U.S., but Attorney General Pam Bondi has said that returning him is “up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us.” 

After Fox News Digital asked Van Hollen whether he was aware of the domestic violence allegations against Abrego Garcia before he went to visit him in El Salvador, the senator became defensive, saying: “What I said here was these issues need to be litigated in the courts, okay?”

“What Donald Trump needs to do is put up or shut up in the courts, and he’s just not done that,” he went on.

“My response is, always stick to the Constitution, stick to the due process rights of people who live in America, and if we all do that, then we’ll be doing the right thing for our country.”