In his first week hosting The 11th Hour on weeknights, MS NOW's Ali Velshi devoted the final segment of one of his first shows to cheering the fact that illegal alien Kilmar Abrego Garcia has so far managed to thwart the Trump administration's efforts to deport him.
On Tuesday's show, in the closing "Night Light" segment, he took comfort in a court ruling that blocked the prosecution of Abrego Garcia for accusations of human trafficking, with Velshi calling it a "vindictive" prosecution.
The MS NOW host began the segment by marking the 11th anniversary of Donald Trump announcing his candidacy for President in which he complained about illegal immigration:
MS NOW's Velshi Cheers Illegal Alien Avoiding Deportation by Trump pic.twitter.com/ykC0CRiXqT
— Brad Wilmouth (@bradwilmouth) June 18, 2026
ALI VELSHI: Tonight's "Night Light," a nation of immigrants. Eleven years ago today, a man came down a golden escalator in New York and told the country that the people coming across the southern border were rapists and murderers. He bet his political career on that idea -- he won the presidency on it. He won it back on the same issue.
He then brought up Abrego Garcia, claiming that he was "from" Maryland even though he was born in El Salvador, entered the country illegally in 2012, and was found to likely be a MS-13 member after he was detained in 2019. Here's Velshi:
Here's what he didn't count on. His name is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal worker from Maryland, a union member, a father of three. Last year, ICE agents grabbed him and sent him by the administration's own subsequent admission in error to a mega prison in El Salvador. They did it despite a 2019 court order that explicitly forbade it. He spent months in a foreign cell.
He added:
The administration claimed it had no power to bring him back. The Supreme Court unanimously -- which is as rare as a hair on my head -- said that it did, so they brought him back and immediately charged him with a nine-year-old smuggling case that prosecutors had never previously pursued.
After recalling that a judge recently dismissed the smuggling case, Velshi continued:
Eleven years ago today, a candidate bet that he could scapegoat and villainize and criminalize people who were not born in this country -- asylum-seeking refugees, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, your neighbors and coworkers. He thought this was his ticket, and for a while it was. But he went too far. He didn't count on the fact that even people who agreed that American immigration policy has been broken for decades would not sign up for the cruelty, the demonization, the mass arrests and the killing.
The MS NOW host concluded:
And they wouldn't sign up for their tax dollars funding a federal police force loyal to Donald Trump with a budget larger than the armies of all but about 15 countries on Earth. He didn't count on you. He didn't count on you refusing to look away. And when you refuse to look away, they can't break democracy.
Velshi did not mention any of the serious accusations made against him, including domestic and child abuse, and gang violence.
On Monday's show, Velshi explained the purpose of the regular segment, suggesting that it would focus on reasons to be optimistic about the future. On the first night, he celebrated two recent court rulings against the Trump administration -- one requiring Trump's name be taken off the Kennedy Center and one requiring that signs about controversial issues be reposted at national parks.
Transcripts follow:
MS NOW's The 11th Hour with Ali Velshi
June 16, 2026
11:58 p.m. Eastern
Tonight's "Night Light," a nation of immigrants. Eleven years ago today, a man came down a golden escalator in New York and told the country that the people coming across the southern border were rapists and murderers. He bet his political career on that idea -- he won the presidency on it. He won it back on the same issue.
Here's what he didn't count on. His name is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal worker from Maryland, a union member, a father of three. Last year, ICE agents grabbed him and sent him by the administration's own subsequent admission in error to a mega prison in El Salvador. They did it despite a 2019 court order that explicitly forbade it. He spent months in a foreign cell. The administration claimed it had no power to bring him back. The Supreme Court unanimously -- which is as rare as a hair on my head -- said that it did, so they brought him back and immediately charged him with a nine-year-old smuggling case that prosecutors had never previously pursued.
In December, a federal judge ordered Abrego Garcia's release from detention, and last month, a federal judge in Tennessee dismissed the indictment as vindictive. Quote, "The government would not have brought this prosecution," he wrote, "absent Abrego's successful lawsuit." The Trump administration, it should be noted, is still trying to get Abrego Garcia out of the country. But they were forced to bring him home after wrongfully deporting him the first time, and their subsequent attempt to prosecute him turned out to be the first time a judge dismissed a case brought by Trump's DOJ for being grounded in a vindictive motivation.
Eleven years ago today, a candidate bet that he could scapegoat and villainize and criminalize people who were not born in this country -- asylum-seeking refugees, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, your neighbors and coworkers. He thought this was his ticket, and for a while it was. But he went too far. He didn't count on the fact that even people who agreed that American immigration policy has been broken for decades would not sign up for the cruelty, the demonization, the mass arrests and the killing. And they wouldn't sign up for their tax dollars funding a federal police force loyal to Donald Trump with a budget larger than the armies of all but about 15 countries on Earth. He didn't count on you. He didn't count on you refusing to look away. And when you refuse to look away, they can't break democracy.
(...)
June 15, 2026
11:57 p.m.
VELSHI: Before we leave you, something new. Every weeknight from here on, we will close with a "Night Light." A night light, as anyone who has ever been four years old knows, doesn't make the darkness go away. It just sits there, quietly reminding you that the darkness isn't total. The small things still on at three in the morning when you wake up convinced that the world has ended, and the world mercifully has not. And that's what this is -- the small thing that happened that made our situation right now feel a little less dark.
