A federal judge in Maryland ordered the United States government to return a deported Beltsville man by Monday in a case she called “unprecedented.”
Judge Paula Xinis on Friday ruled against the Trump administration’s argument that the court had no jurisdiction, and said the record reflects 29-year old Kilmar Abrego Garcia was detained without legal basis and ultimately deported without legal due process. Officials admitted this week that Abrego Garcia's deportation resulted from an “administrative error.”
Abrego Garcia is believed to be currently detained at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a notorious prison, despite a 2019 court ruling granting him protection due to the threat of gang persecution in his home country.
On a screen at the court house, Abrego Garcia‘s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, could be seen hugging her husband’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, while supporters were cheering outside.
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“What do we want? Justice for Kilmar! When do we want it? Now!” shouted the crowd.
Vasquez Sura thanked supporters and said, “we’ll continue fighting for Kilmar, for my husband.”
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Addressing reporters, Sandoval-Moshenberg said the government appears to be showing “apathy” toward both Abrego Garcia’s family and the legal case. He said they took “no actual steps to communicate or provide documents to the lawyer who they sent into court to defend their actions.”
During the hearing, Erez Reuveni of the Justice Department was unable to provide answers on the legal basis for Abrego Garcia's detainment.
“On what basis is he held,” the judge asked.
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“I don’t know…that information has not been given to me,” Reuveni responded.
Xinis later asked whether the government could produce a warrant or statement of probable cause leading to his arrest.
“The government has not put that in the record and that’s the best I can do,” replied Reuveni.
The government concedes that the 2019 deportation order cannot be the basis for Abrego Garcias deportation to El Salvador, Reuveni said.
A judge blocked that order, granting Abrego Garcia legal protection to remain in the U.S. and work lawfully; Xinis said a removal based on that order would therefore be “an illegal act.”
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Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg argued that there’s “good reason to believe the government would be successful” if they admitted the mistake and simply asked El Salvador’s government to release him.
He said he was “flabbergasted” they haven’t done so.
Elizabeth Keyes, an immigration law professor at the University of Baltimore, said judge’s ruling will not set a legally binding precedent, it will hopefully empower other families to fight other wrongful deportations.
“It’s a specific, important outcome for his family and for him and his safety,” she said. “It also hopefully sends a really loud signal to the administration that they need to follow the law, that they cannot run rough shot over the constitution in their hurry to remove people.”
The government now has to make “every effort” to meet the judge’s deadline.
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If they don’t, Keyes said, that raises a constitutional problem.
Earlier in the day Vasquez Sura recounted the last thing her husband told her, which was to take care of their 5-year-old son, who is named after him. In her first speaking appearance since news of her husband’s deportation was reported, she said she hasn’t seen or heard from him since.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had detained Abrego Garcia not long after he picked up his child from school on March 12, setting off a case that has garnered national attention over the deportation efforts of the Trump administration, which have already drawn scrutiny for defying court rulings. Abrego Garcia was sitting handcuffed on the curb when his wife arrived.
“Si fueres fuerte, yo seré fuerte,” he said. “I’ll be strong if you are.”
Sura, who said she identified her husband from his tattoo in a photo of prisoners in El Salvador, stood by advocates holding signs with pictures of Abrego Garcia kissing his son’s cheek.
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What federal officials are calling an administrative mistake has thrown the family into fear, heartbreak and jeopardy, advocates said.
Abrego Garcia and Vasquez Sura are parents of three children. All of them have disabilities.
“There’s nothing administrative about destroying a family. There is nothing accidental about violating a clear court order,” said Lydia Walther-Rodriguez, CASA’s chief of organizing. “There is nothing just about disappearing somebody into a notorious Salvadoran prison and all paid for by the Trump administration.”
As she addressed a room of reporters, Vasquez Sura’s voice broke and she began to tear up. When she wakes up from the few hours she is able to sleep at night, she said, her surroundings still feel like a nightmare.
Days ago, Vasquez Sura caught her 10-year-old daughter trying to reach her father, sending him messages from her tablet telling him she missed him and wished she could trade places with him. She said her child is desperate “to make sense of something not even adults have answers to.”
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The Trump administration has said Abrego Garcia is a member of the violent gang MS-13, but his family and attorney strongly dispute these allegations, insisting that there is no credible proof. His legal team plans to ask the judge to order DHS to facilitate his return, though the administration maintains it has no obligation to do so.
Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador after the gang Barrio 18 threatened him and his family in an attempt to extort them for “rent” money, according to court papers. He came to the U.S. as an undocumented person around 2011, according to his lawyers, and made his way to Maryland to join his older brother, a U.S. citizen.
In 2019, Abrego Garcia faced an immigration hearing after he was arrested while looking for work and turned over to ICE following allegations that he was a member of MS-13. But his attorney at the time pushed back against the claim, which relied on a confidential informant.
Abrego Garcia applied for asylum but was denied by an immigration judge because he did not apply within one year of entering the U.S. But the judge did grant “withholding of removal,” which allowed him to live in the country and work lawfully, on the basis of the likely threats he faced if he returned to El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia was arrested under the purview of ICE’s Baltimore field office, which recently came under scrutiny for its practice of detaining people in bedless cells for multiple days at a time. His arrest came before former local field office director Matthew Elliston’s recent promotion was made public.
Krystal Oriadha, Prince George’s County councilmember for District 7, said Abrego Garcia’s deportation was “intentional.”
“If we do not rally together and stand with our brothers and sisters right now,” she said, “there will be a moment where there’s no one left to protect you.”
