Despite what alleged gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s attorney is arguing in court, there is evidence of MS-13 “Western clique” activity in and around Washington, D.C.

Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was living illegally in southern Maryland near the nation’s capital, is accused of belonging to the Western clique of MS-13. His current immigration lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, is disputing that he was ever a member of MS-13 and has bolstered that argument in court filings by claiming that the Western clique operates only in New York, where he says Abrego Garcia has never lived.