Trump administration officials have pushed back against bringing him back, arguing it is up to El Salvador. The president of El Salvador said he lacked the power to return Abrego Garcia, saying it would be "preposterous" to "smuggle a terrorist into the United States."
Abrego Garcia, 29, lived in the U.S. for roughly 14 years, during which he worked construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities, according to court records.
Trump administration officials said he was deported based on a 2019 accusation from Maryland police he was an MS-13 gang member. Abrego Garcia denied the allegation and was never charged with a crime, his attorneys said.
A U.S. immigration judge subsequently shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faced persecution there by local gangs. The Trump administration deported him there last month anyway, later describing the mistake as "an administrative error" but insisting he was in MS-13.
As his case continues in the U.S. courts, here is Abrego Garcia's story so far:
Gang threats in El Salvador
Abrego Garcia grew up in El Salvador’s capital city, San Salvador, according to court documents filed in U.S. immigration court in 2019. His father was a former police officer. His mother, Cecilia, sold pupusas, the nation’s signature dish of flat tortilla pouches that hold steaming blends of cheese, beans or pork.
The entire family, including his two sisters and brother, ran the business from home, court records state. Abrego Garcia’s job was buying ingredients and making deliveries with his older brother, Cesar.
“Everyone in the town knew to get their pupusas from ‘Pupuseria Cecilia,’” his lawyers wrote.
A local gang, Barrio 18, began extorting the family for “rent money” and threatened to kill Cesar — or force him into their gang — if they weren’t paid, court documents state. The family complied but eventually sent Cesar to the U.S.
Barrio 18 similarly targeted Abrego Garcia, according to his immigration case. When he was 12, the gang threatened to take him away until his father paid “all of the money that they wanted.” They still watched him as he walked to and from school.
The family moved 10 minutes away, but the gang threatened to rape and kill Abrego Garcia’s sisters, court records state. The family closed the business, moved again, and eventually sent Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
The family never went to the authorities because of rampant police corruption, according to court filings. The gang continued to harass the family in Guatemala, which borders El Salvador.
Life in the U.S.
Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011, the year he turned 16, according to documents in his immigration case. He joined Cesar, now a U.S. citizen, in Maryland and found work in construction.
About five years later, Abrego Garcia met Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, the records say. In 2018, after she learned she was pregnant, he moved in with her and her two children. They lived in Prince George’s County, outside Washington.
In March 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot seeking work as a laborer when he and three other men were detained by local police, court records say. They were suspected of being in MS-13 based on tattoos and clothing, according to the records.
Local police contacted a criminal informant who said Abrego Garcia was in MS-13, the interview sheet stated.
Now, attorneys for Abrego Garcia say the informant had identified an MS-13 chapter in New York, where Abrego Garcia has never lived.
Prince George's County Police did not charge the men and had no further interactions with Abrego Garcia or “any new intelligence" on him, the department said in a recent statement.
Local police turned Abrego Garcia over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to his immigration case. He told a U.S. immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released. Vasquez Sura was five months into a high-risk pregnancy, case documents say.
The Department of Homeland Security alleged Abrego Garcia was a gang member based on the county police's information, according to his immigration case. The information was enough for an immigration judge in April 2019 to keep Abrego Garcia in jail as his case continued, the records show. The judge said the informant was proven and reliable and had verified his gang membership.
Abrego Garcia appealed the judge's decision to keep him in jail, but that was later denied, records show.
Abrego Garcia later married Vasquez Sura in a Maryland detention center, according to court filings. She gave birth while he was still in jail.
In October 2019, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s asylum request but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador because of a “well-founded fear” of gang persecution, according to his case. He was released; ICE did not appeal.
Abrego Garcia checked in with ICE yearly while Homeland Security issued him a work permit, his attorneys said in court filings. He joined a union and was employed full time as a sheet metal apprentice.
In 2021, Vasquez Sura filed a temporary protection order against Abrego Garcia, stating he punched, scratched and ripped off her shirt during an argument. The case was dismissed weeks later, according to court records.
Vasquez Sura said in a statement, after the document's release by the Trump administration, that the couple had worked things out “privately as a family, including by going to counseling.”
“After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar,” she stated. “Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process.”
She said the protection order doesn't justify his deportation.
“Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him,” she said.
In 2022, according to a report released by the Trump administration, Abrego Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol for speeding. The vehicle had eight other people and no luggage, prompting an officer to suspect human trafficking, the report stated.
Abrego Garcia said he was driving them from Texas to Maryland for construction work, the report stated. No citations were issued.
Abrego Garcia's wife said in a statement that he sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites, “so it’s entirely plausible he would have been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle. He was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing.”
Abrego Garcia and Vasquez Sura were raising three kids, including their 5-year-old son, who has autism, is deaf in one ear and unable to verbally communicate, according to the complaint against the Trump administration. They were also raising a 9-year-old with autism and a 10-year-old with epilepsy.
Mistaken deportation
In February, the Trump administration designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization and sought to remove identified members “as expeditiously as possible,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court.
Abrego Garcia was pulled over March 12 outside an Ikea in Baltimore with his son, according to court records. An agent called Vasquez Sura and said she had 10 minutes to retrieve their son or ICE would request child protective services.
Abrego Garcia called his wife from jail and said authorities pressed him about MS-13, according to court documents. They asked about a photo they had of him playing basketball on a public court, and his family’s visits to a restaurant serving Mexican and Salvadoran food.
“He would repeat the truth again and again — that he was not in a gang,” Vasquez Sura stated in court documents.
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