GREENBELT, Md. — On Dec. 22, the Department of Justice moved yet again to try and put Kilmar Ábrego García back behind bars. They were unsuccessful. However, the government’s vindictive prosecution of the 30-year-old construction apprentice continues, despite court rulings that his March 12 arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents violated a standing court order and his ensuing deportation back to El Salvador was illegal, lacking a valid removal order.
On Dec. 11, Ábrego García, a member of SMART union Local 100, was freed from immigration detention after U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland ordered the government to release him. She issued a restraining order barring ICE from any further efforts to imprison him until and unless she changed her mind.
As Ábrego García, approached the courtroom door Dec. 22, hand in hand with his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the 50 of us lined up to attend the hearing and support him broke into applause. Outside the hearing over 100 more supporters rallied in his defense. Many carried signs saying “Stand with Kilmar Ábrego García SMART,” given out by his union, which helped build the rally.
Filing into the packed courtroom with him were his brother César and mother Cecilia, as well as members of CASA, the immigration group that defends him. Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, his attorney, brought his two children.
Throughout the one-hour hearing, Judge Xinis repeatedly grilled Justice Department attorney Ernesto Molina. He repeatedly said he was unable to tell the court what the government planned to do next if authorities arrested Ábrego García again.
“Once again, I’m making a finding that these representations, which are misrepresentations, are in bad faith,” Xinis told Molina.
“Yet again for the seventh or eighth time, the government employed the tactic of sending an attorney into court who feigned ignorance as to what the government’s plan is,” Sandoval-Moshenberg told a cheering crowd after the hearing. Xinis said she will now decide whether or not to make her restraining order permanent.
“This decision means Kilmar gets to sleep in his own bed, without the fear of being separated from his family and community in the middle of the night,” CASA leader Lydia Walther-Rodriguez said. “No one should have to bear the weight and anguish of a family separation, at any random moment, just for demanding their constitutional rights.”
Fight for immigrant workers’ rights
Ábrego García’s fight is a flashpoint in the broader battle for the rights of undocumented workers and unity of the working class. The Trump administration seized and deported him to the notorious CECOT mega prison in El Salvador where he was beaten and tortured. His deportation violated an explicit 2019 court order prohibiting the government from doing so, because he and his family faced threats from violent gangs there.
Facing mounting public pressure and a direct order from the Supreme Court, the government brought him back to the U.S., but only after they had filed criminal charges of “human smuggling” in Tennessee. Ábrego García has steadfastly denied these charges and argues that prosecutors are vindictively and criminally targeting him. Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr., who is in charge of this case, has said he tends to agree with this.
The judge had set a trial date, but has now cancelled it. Instead, he will preside over an evidentiary hearing Jan. 28 where Justice Department witnesses will be questioned about their vindictive prosecution. The reason for this became clear Dec. 30 when the judge released a series of letters from top officials in the Department of Justice pressing Tennessee prosecutors to go after Ábrego García. All along they have denied this was true.
While at home, Ábrego García has to wear two electronic tracking devices, one on each leg. One is there as a condition of his parole in the government’s frame-up criminal case against him in Tennessee and the other was put there by ICE.
Still he managed to take the moral high ground, recording a TikTok video where he lip syncs “Himno de Victoria,” (Hymn of Victory), a biblical song of triumph. It has been viewed by millions.