Suspension of Due Process – Who Will Be Next!
Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen who was residing in Maryland, until Immigration and Customs Enforcement took him into custody on March 12, 2025. Abrego Garcia was seized March 12 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who stopped his car after he had picked up his autistic son on his way home from a job in Baltimore. At the time, Garcia was working as an apprentice for Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Union (SMART) Local 100 in Maryland. He is a full-time worker who supports his wife and 5 year old son who has autism and a hearing defect. He is a legal resident protected from deportation by a 2019 court order, not a green card holder.
SMART President Michael Coleman has stated. “He came to the United States as a teenager 15 years ago, and it is my understanding that he was legally authorized to live and work in this country and had fully complied with his responsibilities under the law. He did not have a criminal record and is, in fact, an example of the hard work that SMART members pride themselves.”
On March 15, he was illegally deported to El Salvador, where he was imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a maximum security prison. The Trump administration called the deportation “an administrative error”.
BACKGROUND
Abrego Garcia was born in El Salvador, in July 1995. His mother ran a food business. Garcia testified that the Barrio 18 gang tried to extort his mother’s business for money and threatened that if she did not pay the money they would make her sons join their gang instead.
As a result, at the age of 16, Garcia fled El Salvador and illegally entered the United States in 2011. According to his lawyers, Garcia has previously testified about the Barrio 18 gang’s attempts to recruit him in El Salvador. However, other commentators have noted that the Barrio 18 gang is a rival of MS-13. In 2016, Garcia met Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, a US citizen who would later become his wife.
In March 2019, Prince George’s County, Maryland, police arrested Garcia with three other men identified by police as high ranking MS-13 members in a Home Depot parking lot where they were seeking work as day laborers. One of the men claimed Garcia was a “gang member,” but The Atlantic reported that according to court filings, the man offered no proof and police said they did not believe him. He was never charged with a crime in connection to his arrest.
Police handed custody of Garcia over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation proceedings. In those proceedings, the government claimed that he was a member of the MS-13 criminal gang because “he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie” and a confidential informant claimed that he was active with an MS-13 group based in New York. An immigration judge determined that the informant’s claim was sufficient evidence for denying Garcia’s bond request, and another judge upheld that ruling, saying the claim that he was in MS-13 for purposes of the bond determination was not clearly wrong. Garcia has consistently denied any connection to MS-13.
While awaiting resolution to his deportation proceedings, Garcia married his girlfriend in June 2019, and they had a child together later that year who is a US citizen. His wife also had two children from an earlier relationship, and all three children have special needs.
In 2019, with his lawyer, Garcia fought allegations against him in deportation proceedings in court and applied for asylum. His request for asylum was denied, as one must submit an asylum application within a year of arriving in the U.S. However, the judge granted him “withholding of removal” status that would block his deportation to El Salvador due to the threat that gangs would pose to him, finding that “he was more likely than not to be harmed if he was returned to El Salvador.” He was granted a work permit, and has lived and worked legally in Maryland since. According to his attorney, after Garcia’s release from detention in 2019 until he was taken into custody in March 2025, his only encounters with law enforcement were his annual required check-ins with ICE.
LAWSUIT
In response to his deportation, on March 24, 2025, Garcia’s wife sued the United States, with herself, Abrego Garcia, and their son as plaintiffs. Their attorneys sought court intervention to compel the administration to facilitate his return. The U.S. government later acknowledged to the court that the government had been aware of the immigration judge’s order preventing his removal to El Salvador, stating in a court filing that “although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error.” This admission marked the first acknowledgment of a mistake related to the deportation of hundreds of people on March 15. Despite acknowledging the error, the Trump administration has argued in court that the court lacks personal jurisdiction to order the return of Garcia, as he is no longer in U.S. custody.
Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, stated that the U.S. government was claiming “that the court is powerless to order any relief…If that’s true, the immigration laws are meaningless—all of them—because the government can deport whoever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, and no court can do anything about it once it’s done.”
JUDGE RULING
On April 4, 2025, Judge Paula Xinis ruled that his detention without any kind of judicial documentation warranting it was illegal and that he would be irreparably harmed if he remained in El Salvador, and she ordered the government to ensure his return to the U.S. no later than April 7.
BACKLASH
Abrego (Kilmar) Garcia’s deportation resulted in significant public activism from both his local union, International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) Local 100, and the SMART International Union. SMART General President Michael Coleman said the following in response to his deportation: “In his pursuit of the life promised by the American dream, Brother Kilmar was literally helping to build this great country. What did he get in return? Arrest and deportation to a nation whose prisons face outcry from human rights organizations. SMART condemns his treatment in the strongest possible terms, and we demand his rightful return.”
Congressional Democrats called for Garcia’s release. Representative Adriano Espaillat stated in a press conference that he would write to President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele to formally ask for Abrego Garcia’s release and to know his condition, and that that he hoped to visit the Terrorism Confinement Center. He noted that Garcia had been jailed despite not being charged with a crime in either the United States or in El Salvador. Senator Chris Van Hollen connected Garcia to deportations under Trump more broadly, speaking of “people being disappeared” in America, including visiting students and legal immigrants. Representative Joaquin Castro called for accountability for President Bukele, under his impending visit to the US, for the imprisonment of Abrego Garcia and others in what Castro called “gulags” and “torture prisons.”
SUPREME COURT
On April 10, the Supreme Court released an unanimous decision. In reciting the facts of the case the court stated: “The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal.” After reviewing the case, the Supreme Court ruled that the District Court “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador”. The Court remanded the case to the district court, saying: “The District Court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affair, and the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”
Justice Sotomayor wrote a statement joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, stating in part:
The Government now requests an order from this Court permitting it to leave Abrego Garcia, a husband and father without a criminal record, in a Salvadoran prison for no reason recognized by the law. The only argument the Government offers in support of its request, that United States courts cannot grant relief once a deportee crosses the border, is plainly wrong. … The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U.S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.
OPINION
In the case of Abrego Garcia and, other cases being filed, it looks as if we are heading towards a Constitutional Crisis between the Executive Branch and the Judiciary. If there is no longer due process, God help us all. Sitting on the sidelines because you feel safe is not an option, for surely when they come for you no one will be there to speak for you. Stand up for your rights and make your voices heard. Democracy Dies in Ignorance!