Kilmar Abrego Garcia: who is the man at the heart of Trump’s deportation scandal?

The deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was the result of an unsubstantiated claim he was a violent gang member, and an administrative error which sent him to a country where his life was at risk. The father now faces an uncertain future in an El Salvador prison renowned for its human rights abuses. It’s a worrying precedent for a democratic country and a terrifying demonstration of presidential power defying the courts.

Source: US District Court, Maryland

On 15 March, Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported from the United States and imprisoned in El Salvador’s maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

There was no charge. 

There was no conviction. 

There was no trial. 

An allegation of Mr Garcia being a dangerous gang member had no concrete evidence to substantiate it, and yet still led to his removal from US soil. An “administrative error” worsened matters by deporting him to a country where his life was in danger.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled the government had acted illegally in its handling of Mr Garcia’s case, and voted unanimously for President Donald Trump’s administration to “facilitate” his return. 

But in a staggering White House meeting yesterday, El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele refused to release him. Trump and his team claimed they could do nothing to ensure his freedom, and doubled down on dubious allegations that he was a terrorist. 

It was open defiance of a Supreme Court ruling, one of many decisions throughout Mr Garcia’s story which have set dangerous precedents for a democratic country. 

Justice Sotomayor, one of the court’s twelve judges, commented that inaction on the matter could lead to the government “incarcerat[ing] any person, including US citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene.”

Mr Garcia’s arrest is therefore not just the story of a father being torn from his family, but an attack on the foundational freedoms which are supposed to be the bedrock of American constitutionalism.

Illegal immigration and MS-13

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was born in San Salvador, the capital city of Central American country El Salvador, in July 1995. 

His mother ran a small business selling the national dish of pupusas, but a local gang, Barrio 18, began to demand ‘rent’ from the family. Court documents show they threatened to kill their eldest son, Cesar, or force him to join the gang if they did not pay up.

The Garcias sent Cesar to the US to protect him, but Barrio 18’s threats merely diverted to Kilmar and his sisters. Fearing the gang’s wrath, Kilmar’s parents told him to follow his brother.

In 2011, at the age of 16, Mr Garcia illegally entered the United States.

He took up construction jobs in Maryland, where Cesar lived. He fell in love with a US citizen, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, who became pregnant with his child, and the couple moved in together with Miss Sura’s other two children. 

Then, in 2019, Mr Garcia was arrested while seeking work in a Home Depot car park and handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who began deportation proceedings.

During this process, ICE received information from a confidential informant that Mr Garcia was a member of a New York faction of the MS-13 gang, which had links to immigrant communities from Central American countries. Astonishingly, evidence to support the claim included the fact he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie. 

However, ICE could not produce any tangible proof that he had ever been a part of MS-13, in part owing to the fact he had never lived in New York. Consequently, he was not charged with any offence relating to the tip-off.

Mr Garcia then pleaded for asylum, citing Barrio 18’s threats to his life. He was ineligible for this as he had not applied within one year of entering the US, but a judge did grant him “withholding of removal” status.

This court order meant Mr Garcia was still eligible for deportation, but, crucially, that he could not be sent back to El Salvador due to the likely torture and persecution he would face there. Any attempts by the government to return him to his birth country would be illegal - a decision which was not appealed by ICE - and Mr Garcia was released. 

Homeland Security allowed him a work permit, meaning he could live and work legally within Maryland so long as he attended annual check-ins with ICE.

Mr Garcia, who married Miss Sura while detained, took up work as a sheet metal apprentice while raising his biological child and his wife’s other two children, all of whom have special needs. Documents show he never failed to present himself to ICE for his annual appointments.

Trump’s immigration agenda

Trump’s presidency came with the promise of clamping down on foreign criminals, illegal immigrants, gang violence and national security threats. 

As part of this policy, he moved to designate gangs with foreign links as terrorist organisations, including MS-13, automatically categorising its members as terrorists. 

Trump also struck a deal with the El Salvador government: they would receive cash in exchange for accepting gang members deported from American soil at a rate of $20,000 per person, according to Associated Press. 

Flights began to remove suspected criminals and deposit them in CECOT, which is famed for its harsh measures and infringements on human rights. Photos from within the facility show men stripped down in overcrowded conditions, with reports that detainees lack ventilation, medical supplies or contact with families or lawyers. 

Amnesty International has documented testimonies of beatings, starvation and deaths within CECOT, flagrant breaches of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 

On 12 March, Mr Garcia was arrested during a traffic stop and taken into custody, being told his immigration status had changed. Within days he was deported to El Salvador. 

The reason given was his alleged ties to MS-13 - but, again, this is a claim which has not been substantiated. Mr Garcia’s lawyers argue: “The US government has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation”.

Regardless of any allegations, the fact remains that Mr Garcia’s 2019 court order expressly prohibited him from being returned to El Salvador. ICE admitted an “administrative error” meant this was overlooked and led to his illegal transfer. 

Last week, the Supreme Court stepped in and ordered the government to “facilitate” Mr Garcia’s return to the US in a unanimous verdict.

But in the White House last night, El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele refused to release him, arguing: “You want us to go back to releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world? That’s not going to happen.”

Trump and his team highlighted the Supreme Court’s order was to simply ‘facilitate’ Mr Garcia’s return, meaning they would supply him with a flight back to the US if he was released. 

But they maintain the decision to release him in the first place still rests with El Salvador as US judges cannot compel a foreign country to act. 

The ramifications on US freedoms

The US can deport non-citizens without proving criminal guilt under the Immigration and Nationality Act. This gives ICE the power to initiate proceedings against suspected gang members without trial. 

There is still a burden of proof, but the threshold is much lower than in criminal courts, so the confidential informant’s tip-off in 2019 would have counted as evidence of gang affiliation against Mr Garcia. This one source also seems to be the entire foundation of why Trump and JD Vance have both asserted he is an MS-13 member. 

Yet their comments cannot overcome the lack of proof. One person’s anonymous testimonial has seemingly quashed any fair counterargument, such as Mr Garcia never having lived in New York or a lack of details of his supposed activities with MS-13. Defence lawyers have repeatedly stated in court they believe the informant’s accusation is pure fabrication. 

It’s an incredibly dangerous precedent. Government officials can seemingly open up cases against any immigrant and then use vague or unverifiable evidence to transfer them to a country where human rights are a lax affair. It’s a sobering notion reminiscent of Joseph McCarthy’s paranoid witch hunt against suspected communist sympathisers. 

Errors in the system could even lead to a US citizen facing deportation, as Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor points out, and the speed with which Mr Garcia was removed may result in banishment before effective challenges can be mounted. President Bukele has shown that if this were to happen, American courts have limited powers to undo their mistake if foreign governments ignore their appeals. 

JD Vance and Attorney General Pam Bondi have both stated that the fact Mr Garcia was an illegal immigrant was enough of a reason to deport him. The debate about the seriousness of an unauthorised border crossing can rage on, but the sentence bestowed upon Mr Garcia does not seem proportionate if he is being detained in a prison designed for terrorists and violent criminals.

Believing this is acceptable could open the door to any immigrant - children and asylum seekers fleeing war or persecution, for example - being treated in the same way. 

Even if we turn a blind eye to all these possibilities, one thing remains fact: the 2019 court order which barred Mr Garcia’s removal to El Salvador was still valid. 

That means the government acted illegally by deporting him to CECOT, and yet there are seemingly zero consequences for this nor any serious efforts to rectify the mistake. Trump could make a concerted effort to negotiate the release with President Bukele - after all, an ally would surely be willing to help out. 

Yet he is failing to do so, and as a result, is defying the Supreme Court’s directive to “facilitate” Mr Garcia’s return.

Trump’s administration is acting with more and more impunity as it increasingly undermines the judiciary. Ignoring a court order is an alarming action. For a democracy, this is a worrying trend. 

And for Mr Garcia’s family, it offers no remedy to their haunting experience.