WASHINGTON — March 12 marked one year since Kilmar Ábrego García, the 30-year-old Maryland union apprentice sheet metal worker, was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and illegally deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT mega-prison days later.
His wife, Jennifer Vásquez Sura, family and supporters fought the deportation with support from his union, the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, winning his return to the U.S. in June. From the start they appealed for, and won, solidarity from unions and others.
CASA, the immigrant-rights group that Ábrego García is a member of, held press conferences and rallied in the streets, at federal court hearings, on May Day and outside the White House. Participants chanted, “Todos somos Kilmar!” (We are all Kilmar). Still, Ábrego García continues to face a blatantly vindictive government prosecution and ongoing efforts to deport him to Africa.
Federal Judge Paula Xinis issued a temporary order March 23 keeping in place previous decisions preventing the Department of Homeland Security from deporting Ábrego García to a third country.
Her ruling came after a March 20 filing from the government requesting Xinis dissolve her previous injunctions and let it go ahead with plans to deport Ábrego García to Liberia. Todd Lyons, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, told the court the government rejected Ábrego García’s request to go to Costa Rica, arguing the law does not allow immigrants to designate a country of removal.
“These are mostly reheated arguments that have already been rejected on several occasions,” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Ábrego García’s lawyer.
The government has “made one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success,” Xinis wrote Feb. 17. It has “done nothing to show that Abrego Garcia’s continued detention in ICE custody is consistent with due process.”
When Ábrego García was brought back from El Salvador in June he was immediately thrown into a Nashville, Tennessee, jail on frame-up charges of human smuggling.
Ábrego García insists he is innocent and has refused to take a plea deal. Federal Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. in Nashville is considering dismissing the charges against him as retaliatory and vindictive.
Ábrego García spent 275 days in jail — in CECOT, in Nashville and in ICE custody in Moshannon Valley, Pennsylvania. When he was freed Dec. 11, he began to speak out against his treatment by the government.
“The fight will continue,” he told supporters Dec. 12 before attending an ICE check-in in Baltimore. “I will remain standing. I will not bow my head to anyone. I will always stand against the injustices this government has committed.”
The brutal treatment of Ábrego García is part of a broader drive by the Donald Trump administration against immigrants. The aim is to intimidate millions of workers in the U.S. who have no papers, reinforce their second-class status and intensify their exploitation. This is a bipartisan policy aimed at dividing the working class and meeting the profit-driven needs of the employers.
Ábrego García’s fight remains a flashpoint. Join the fight against his deportation!