Government Refuses to Return Wrongfully Deported Father to Maryland

On March 12, Kilmar Abrego García, a nearly 15-year resident of Maryland’s Prince George’s County with legal protected status, was detained and arrested by Immigration & Customs Enforcement after completing a construction shift at his place of employment. According to a CNN analysis of court documents, García was “pulled over with his young son in the car,” and his U.S.-citizen wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, was only notified of her husband’s arrest “after being warned by a Department of Homeland Security official to retrieve their child or face Child Protective Services.”

CNN reports that ICE officials said that García’s “immigration status had changed” and placed him into ICE custody. Vasquez Sura recounts their son, who is on the autism spectrum, being “inconsolable” as she recovered him and placed him in the car, “clutching his father’s work shirts and sobbing.”

García has been in the U.S. legally since 2019, having fled his native El Salvador after local gangs began targeting and extorting him and his family, threatening them with violence and death. A court ruling explicitly prohibiting any removal of García whatsoever has been in place since that year. The 2019 order came after he was arrested in a different ICE investigation amidst a false allegation that he was purportedly part of a branch of the gang MS-13 that operates in New York—where he has never lived—and an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported due to the danger he would face if returned to El Salvador.

Abrego García has never been charged with a single crime during his “six years of routine check-ins with immigration officials,” but he was denied any sort of due process whatsoever—he was never put in front of any court or given any sort of trial at all. He was then placed on a flight to El Salvador with other detainees and deported to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (also known as CECOT) despite the explicit 2019 court order, as well as known concerns that García would be “tortured or killed” there.

ICE has openly and explicitly admitted that García’s deportation was a mistake, calling it an “administrative error” and an “oversight” and stating directly to multiple judges that he should not have been removed from the United States. Federal Judge Paula Xinis, from the District Court of Maryland, ordered the Trump administration on April 4 to “return [him] to the US by 11:59 p.m. on April 7,” which the administration appealed to the Fourth Circuit. Before the Fourth Circuit ruled, however, the Department of Justice filed an “emergency application” to the Supreme Court. 

The Supreme Court, in the case Noem v. Abrego Garcia, et. al., has ruled unanimously (9-0) that the U.S. Government indeed “remains bound” by the 2019 order “expressly prohibiting Abrego García’s removal…because he faced a ‘clear probability of future persecution.’” Justice Sonia Sotomayor (joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson) notes in her statement within the ruling that “the Government has not challenged the validity of that order…[and] instead of hastening to correct its egregious error, the Government dismissed it as an ‘oversight.’” Sotomayor further adds that García, a “husband and father without a criminal record,” is being left by the administration to languish in an El Salvador detention center for “no reason recognized by the law,” and that “the only argument the Government offers…that United States courts cannot grant relief once a deportee crosses the border, is plainly wrong.”

The Supreme Court issued its final ruling on April 10. Despite its clear order to uphold Judge Xinis’ directive that Abrego García must be immediately brought back, the administration has still made no effort to return García to the U.S. as of April 17, and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele told reporters that returning him would be “preposterous” according to NPR. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” he asked during an Oval Office visit, despite being fully aware of García’s lack of any criminal record as well as the clear evidence that he has legal protected status in the States.

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) travelled to El Salvador this past week to try to visit García, who as a Maryland resident is his constituent, but the Democrat reported that the Salvadoran government “declined his request,” and that he was “stopped by soldiers while on his way to CECOT…[who] simply said they had been given orders not to allow [Van Hollen] to visit him.” 

He added that El Salvador’s vice president, Félix Ulloa, told him that despite the country having no evidence of García’s involvement in any gang, they were keeping him in custody because “El Salvador was being paid by the Trump administration…and that this was essentially their contractual obligation.” Ulloa also refused to arrange a phone or video conference with García. Also worth noting is that many Republican representatives have in fact visited CECOT multiple times in the past few months to take what appeared to be PR tours of the facility while speaking “highly” of Trump’s deportation initiatives in social media posts, which casts serious doubt on any possible non-politically motivated reasons to deny Van Hollen a visit with his wrongfully jailed constituent.

Sen. Van Hollen announced to NBC4 Washington hours later that despite being stonewalled, he had indeed made a third attempt to meet with Abrego García, this time successfully getting the opportunity to speak with his wrongfully deported constituent. He shared a photo of himself and García together, adding that he had “called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love.” Van Hollen added that he “won’t give up until Kilmar has his due process rights respected,” and that there would be “many more” lawmakers visiting El Salvador. Van Hollen has not yet returned from the country as of April 17, but said that he “[looks] forward to providing a full update upon [his] return.”

On April 11, Judge Xinis held another brief hearing, with CNN describing her as appearing “incredulous” as the DOJ’s attorney repeatedly refused to answer questions concerning the case. Attorneys for García “lambasted” the DOJ’s behaviour, accusing it of “playing a game” with lawyers as well as with the case as a whole. 

“The record as it stands…is [that the federal government has still] done nothing to facilitate the return of Mr. Abrego García,” she said, strongly rebuking the administration’s claim that the SCOTUS order purportedly requires her to wait for a DOJ response before ordering daily updates on the administration’s actions to follow her directives, “We’re not going to slow walk this…so you will have a full and fair opportunity to be heard, but we’re not relitigating what the Supreme Court has already put to bed.”

Judge Xinis directed that the updates must be composed of “a series of questions the judge has already posed to the government,” said CNN, especially “the current physical location [of García]…and what additional steps [the government] will take, and when, to facilitate his return.” As of April 17, García’s case is still pending in front of Judge Xinis, and it remains unclear what his fate will be. In the meantime, Vasquez Sura says, “our three children [have] lost their father and I [have] lost the love of my life.”

Author’s Note:

This sets an incredibly dangerous precedent for the United States. It shows that the government is ready and willing to “disappear” people with fully legal, protected status—and potentially even U.S. citizens—with zero due process and zero regard for basic law or court orders. There’s no excuse not to be aware of just how slippery of a slope this is.  

This repeated pattern of the government blatantly flouting the law displayed in cases like Abrego García’s in Maryland, Rumeysa Özturk’s in Massachusetts and Badar Khan Suri’s in Virginia puts all Americans—immigrants and born citizens alike—in grave danger.

Sabr Keres-Siddiqui is a sophomore who is majoring in sociology and minoring in journalism and journalism advocacy.