Hershberg: Well, I think one of the things we just don’t understand in this case is: What is the criminal activity that he’s associated with? If he were an active member of the gang, he would be involved in criminal activities. And there’s been no charge, as best I can tell, of his participation in any such activities. Recruitment into the gang typically happens during one’s teenage years. The gangs target young people who are directionless, who don’t have roots in their community, [who] often have broken families—and they offer a kind of family, they offer a community, they offer membership in something. So yes, typically, the entry into gang activity, gang networks happens during the teenage years. And yes, it would be rather unusual for somebody to first connect to the gang in their twenties.

Sargent: Right. Putting it all together, a lot of what we actually know about MS-13 and Abrego Garcia’s specific overall trajectory casts even more doubt on the claim that Trump is making, which, again, he is basing on something that he said was handed to him. Is that about the size of things? The facts just don’t add up in any way, do they?

Hershberg: Well, the facts don’t add up in any way, but I think they do in the sense that we know that for years Trump has demagogued the image of MS-13. This is the person who talks about migrants “poisoning the blood” of Americans. This is the person who talks about vermin, who talks about contamination. And there’s no loyalty here to facts or to decency or to civility. This is somebody who is an opportunist and who deploys fear of outsiders, who deploys resentment against migrants—and for whom, to be able to say, MS-13, MS-13, transnational gang, terrorist organization, is all just part of a demagogic toolkit.