LANGLEY PARK, Md. — For the first time since his arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deportation to the notorious CECOT megaprison in El Salvador March 15, Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been able to communicate with someone outside of the Salvadoran prison system. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen was permitted to visit with him April 17.
Abrego Garcia had been deported without a court hearing to contest it, and despite the fact his presence and right to work in the U.S. were protected by a court order.
Abrego Garcia, a SMART union sheet metal apprentice, was stopped while driving his 5-year-old son home from his grandmother’s house in Beltsville. Three days later he was thrown on a plane and taken out of the country.
Meanwhile, the political and legal fight to reverse his deportation continues to heat up. Federal Judge Paula Xinis handed down a ruling April 22 saying the Department of Justice is guilty of “willful and bad faith” in refusing to follow her orders to turn over information about his deportation. She ordered them to respond fully and truthfully to questions from Abrego Garcia’s attorneys.
On April 16, SMART General President Michael Coleman appeared on CNN’s “The Situation Room” to explain that the union is doing everything it can to get Abrego Garcia back home. “He’s a good man. He’s an outstanding employee,” Coleman said, adding his employer “would like to have him back.”
In March 2019 Abrego Garcia had been picked up by police for the “crime” of looking for a construction job in a Home Depot parking lot, which the cops claimed was a “gang hangout.” After seven months in immigration lockup, he was freed.
Van Hollen’s visit came after Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, launched a campaign to have him returned and freed. In addition to his union, the fight has been backed by CASA de Maryland, an immigrant rights group, and many others.
“There has been no proof provided that he is part of MS-13. This administration has had multiple chances to provide proof in court and has failed to do so,” Coleman told CNN. “You have to give this man due process, and they haven’t done it.”
Abrego Garcia was supposed to have been given written notice that he had a right to challenge the deportation in court, and given enough time to organize to do so. This is what “due process,” protected in the U.S. Constitution for everyone in the U.S., means.
“The labor movement in general sees one of their fellow brothers in a notoriously heinous situation in that prison and it has people upset, scared,” Coleman said, “and that’s why I think it’s gaining so much steam.”
Government smear campaign
After first denying Van Hollen permission to see Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran government suddenly reversed itself. They met in a hotel. Then in the middle of their meeting, government representatives had two margaritas delivered to their table and filmed it.
Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, posted pictures of the meeting on “X,” writing, “Kilmar Abrego Garcia, miraculously risen from the ‘death camps’ & ‘torture,’ now sipping margaritas with Sen. Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador.”
“Nobody drank any margaritas or sugar water or whatever it is,” Van Hollen told the media, calling the whole situation “a lesson” in deception.
Abrego Garcia was granted permission to stay in the U.S. because of evidence he presented in court in 2019 that his life would be in danger from gang violence if he returned to El Salvador. In their own way, government authorities there confirmed this, moving him out of CECOT after a few days and transferring him to the Centro Industrial facility in Santa Ana, where conditions are better.
After first saying that deporting Abrego Garcia was an “administrative error,” which it is powerless to rectify, the U.S. government is now doubling down on smears against him.
The White House widely circulated the Salvadoran government video of the “martini” glasses. They also released and posted on the Department of Homeland Security website a copy of a protective order sought by his wife after they had a domestic squabble in 2021, an outrageous invasion of Vasquez Sura’s right to privacy.
The report wasn’t redacted to protect her privacy either. It showed her home address. She has now moved with her children to another location.
“Look, Kilmar is not perfect, nobody is,” she told the Washington Post. She said she made sure the protective order was never issued. “He was trying his best for me, for our kids, for our future.”
Administration spokespeople also posted reports of a 2022 Tennessee traffic stop and ticket for driving with an expired license by Abrego Garcia. He was driving a carload of co-workers back to Maryland from a construction job in Houston. But government figures claim this incident shows Abrego Garcia is a “human trafficker.”
In spite of the slander, the fight to free Abrego Garcia continues to gain support, and more is needed. Working people should make it a prominent part of the upcoming May Day demonstrations.