Maryland community members demand the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia at an April 4 press conference. Credit: Teresa Paez
On March 12, Maryland resident, father of three and union apprentice Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was arrested and quickly deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to El Salvador’s notorious “mega prison,” CECOT. This prison has been widely condemned by human rights groups for extreme overcrowding and inhumane conditions.
This case has sparked national outcry after the U.S. government admitted to deporting him to El Salvador in violation of a court order. The Trump administration acknowledged the deportation was an “administrative error” in a court filing on March 31. But the Department of Homeland Security is now arguing that because Abrego Garcia is in Salvadoran custody, the U.S. cannot bring him back.
Abrego Garcia, a first-year apprentice with the union of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) Local 100, had been living in Maryland for over 14 years. He was granted legal protection from deportation after a 2019 court decision cleared him of false gang allegations. That ruling gave him the right to remain in the U.S. and barred the government from removing him to El Salvador.
Despite this, Abrego Garcia was deported without any legal representation or due process.
‘ICE kidnapped him’
“There is nothing administrative about destroying a family,” said Lydia Walter Rodriguez, chief of organizing at CASA, a Maryland grassroots immigrant advocacy and community organization, during an emotional press conference held on April 4 at its multicultural center.
“There is nothing accidental about violating a clear court order,” Rodriguez continued. “There is nothing just about disappearing somebody into a notorious Salvadoran prison.”
Rodriguez stood beside Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vazquez Sura, who gave an emotional account of her husband’s abduction.
“On March 12, my husband Kilmar was abducted by the U.S. government,” Vazquez Sura said. “He was handcuffed on the curb while waiting for me to pick up our five-year-old son, who was in the car when ICE kidnapped him.”
While in tears, Vazquez Sura described the anguish of her three children, two of whom have disabilities, who have been struggling to understand their father’s sudden absence. All three are U.S. citizens.
“If I had all the money in the world, I’d spend it all just to buy one thing: a phone call to hear Kilmar’s voice again,” she said. “We will continue to fight for justice for our family, and for the countless others who are suffering the terror caused by the U.S. and Salvadoran administrations.”
Lucia Curiel, an immigration attorney who represented Abrego Garcia in 2019, confirmed that he had received legal protection and should never have been deported.
“I told him he could live in the United States legally and that the government was prohibited from deporting him,” she recalled. “That news was true then, and it is true now. Instead, he’s in a Salvadoran prison, cut off from his family. The government sent him there knowing it was illegal. They call this an error, but refuse to lift a finger to bring him back. This cannot stand.”
On April 1, SMART Union General President Michael Coleman issued a statement condemning the deportation and demanding accountability. At Friday’s press conference, he called on the administration to act immediately.
“This so-called ‘administrative error’ has thrown this family into fear, heartbreak, and quite honestly, into jeopardy,” Coleman said. “It’s just not enough to admit you made a mistake. You need to fix it. We will organize, we will rally, and we will fight until justice is served and Kilmar comes home. We have behind us not only members of SMART, of which he is a brother, but all organized labor because Kilmar is family to us all.”
What’s next?
In a significant legal development, a federal judge ordered on Friday that Abrego Garcia must be returned to the United States no later than Monday, April 7 at 11:59 p.m.
Hours before the deadline, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary administrative pause at the request of the U.S. government, pausing the court’s order to return Abrego Garcia. The pause, which could be lifted or extended, leaves his fate and their family in limbo.
It is clear there is no “error” in this approach but a clear tactic being used by the Trump administration to strip immigrants of any rights that protects them in order to increase mass deportations and continue to crack down on anyone that the administration deems as a threat.
The family and legal team fears this may mean Abrego Garcia could remain imprisoned indefinitely in El Salvador’s CECOT facility. The Supreme Court’s next move will be pivotal, not just for Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, but for the rights of all immigrants under attack by this administration and immigration enforcement.
