GREENBELT, Md. — Supporters of Kilmar Abrego García rallied outside the Maryland federal courthouse here Oct. 6, demanding that the government drop its vindictive deportation case against him and that he be released from jail. He wasn’t allowed to attend his court hearing that day. Abrego García is incarcerated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the privately run Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania.
The deportation case against Abrego García began March 12 when the now 30-year-old sheet metal apprentice and SMART Local 100 member was picked up by ICE after work with his son in the car. He was denied his constitutional right to a hearing and due process, and deported to the notorious CECOT ultra-high-security prison in El Salvador, where he was tortured.
This was done despite a 2019 court order barring the government from deporting him to El Salvador. He and his family had fled the country after receiving death threats from gang members.
When public pressure forced the government to return Abrego García to the U.S., he was again arrested, separated from his family and jailed in Tennessee on trumped-up charges of “human smuggling,” based on a traffic stop 903 days earlier. The Tennessee police had released him without any charges.
Abrego García has steadfastly maintained his innocence, and his family and supporters have insisted that the criminal charges were filed to punish him for winning his return to the U.S.
On Oct. 3 U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. in Nashville, Tennessee, ruled the charges filed by the Donald Trump administration had a “reasonable likelihood of vindictiveness.” He ordered an Oct. 10 hearing to open discovery in the case and discuss its scope. Abrego García’s lawyers can seek evidence to prove the government used criminal law for revenge against him. The ruling came after an immigration judge had denied Abrego García’s motion to reopen his asylum case.
While lawyers say the legal bar to prove “vindictive prosecution” is high, there is a lot of evidence that points to it in this case.
There are social media posts and statements by the Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem disparaging Abrego García as a gang member and human trafficker, even though he had not been tried and convicted of any criminal charges in the United States. President Trump called him “Uganda man,” threatening his imminent deportation there, even though he has no connection whatsoever to that African country.
Among the most serious appearances of vindictiveness, Crenshaw wrote in his decision, are remarks by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Justice Department official in charge of the Tennessee case against Abrego García on the day of his arrest. Blanche told FOX TV that the government didn’t start “investigating” him for the Tennessee case until after a judge in Maryland questioned “the government’s decision to deport Abrego García.”
At the Oct. 6 hearing here U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis rejected a bid by the Trump administration to suspend hearings on his case for the duration of the federal government shutdown.
Abrego García’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told the court that he should be freed. It is illegal to hold him in custody when ICE is not making steady progress to deport him. Government threats to send Abrego García to Uganda, Eswatini or some other country are designed to intimidate him and possibly return him to El Salvador.
Justice Department attorneys were unable to present Xinis with any evidence the government is moving to deport him. “You’ve either done it or your haven’t,” she said. “It’s not a hard question, guys.” Xinis ordered another hearing for Oct. 10, telling government lawyers to produce a witness with concrete evidence as to what they are doing.
“This case is not just about one man,” CASA activist Lydia Walther-Rodriguez told the press after the hearing. “It is about the integrity of the U.S. Constitution as we continue to witness the inhumane retaliation by our government to a man and his family who are simply demanding due process.” CASA, an immigrants’ rights group, has defended him from day one.
More support from unions, immigrant rights groups, defenders of constitutional freedoms and others is needed to demand “Free Kilmar Abrego García!”