The fight to win freedom and the right to remain in the U.S. for Kilmar Abrego García, a SMART union sheet metal worker from Beltsville, Maryland, is being watched closely by workers and others across the country. García and members of his family escaped El Salvador after they were targeted by gang members there.
His case is one example out of hundreds today of how Immigration and Customs Enforcement operates against many immigrant workers, seizing him despite a court order against his deportation, and sending him without the right to a hearing to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador.
After weeks of what Federal Judge Paula Xinis called “defiance and foot-dragging,” and ignoring court orders, including from the Supreme Court, the Justice Department finally returned him to the U.S. This was in response to a strong fight by Abrego García’s union; his family; CASA, the immigrant rights group he belongs to; and others.
However, on his arrival, government authorities filed trumped-up charges of “human smuggling” against him and threw him in jail in Tennessee, far from his family and friends. Throughout, he has been denied his constitutional right to due process — to defend himself.
Broad public support has made it possible for him to wage a vigorous legal defense, and three federal court victories July 23 are marked by the strength of his case and the support he has won.
Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. of Nashville ruled that Abrego García must be released from jail while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges there. She found the government had failed to substantiate its claim that he posed any danger to the community or was a flight risk. She described the government’s attempted frame-up as a “poor attempt to tie Abrego to MS-13,” the Salvadoran gang ICE claims he belongs to.
Judge Barbara Holmes, also in Nashville, agreed to a motion by Abrego García’s lawyers to delay his release by 30 days. They believe this is the only way to safeguard him from arbitrary deportation by ICE, given the government’s record of ignoring his constitutional right to due process.
In Maryland, Judge Xinis ordered that following Abrego García’s release from jail in Tennessee, he will be returned to Maryland and placed under the supervision of ICE’s Baltimore office. Xinis further ordered he couldn’t be rearrested by ICE and that ICE must give 72 hours’ advance notice of any plans to try and deport him.
Xinis still has under advisement an order holding the Justice Department in contempt of court for its conduct.
Speaking for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin attacked Xinis’ decision. She called the judge “unhinged” for presuming to tell the government what to do. It’s “LAWLESS AND INSANE,” she posted on social media “X.”
ICE arrests on the rise
ICE arrests of workers who have no charges against them or convictions are on the rise in the Washington, D.C., area. In Virginia and D.C. they account for 60% of the arrests, and 55% in Maryland.
“We are seeing it in our families, in our communities, in our places of worship,” said Eduardo Zelaya, organizing director for CASA in Virginia. “We are being kidnapped.”
ICE agents are using the courthouse in Chesterfield, Virginia, to seize immigrant workers and take them into detention. Over the last month they’ve picked up workers paying charges on traffic tickets or coming in for vehicle inspections, registration or tags.
“Due process doesn’t have a citizenship clause,” Nicole Martin, president of the Chesterfield County NAACP, told a protest at the courthouse. “It is a fundamental right — citizen or not.”