(The Hill) — The Trump administration’s argument that the mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13 is based largely on a confidential tip he and his family have long disputed.
The claims rely on the findings of an immigration court judge who declined to release Abrego Garcia on bond after an arrest, determining he could be a danger to the community.
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But a review of court records supplied by both the Trump administration and Abrego Garcia’s attorneys shows a more complex picture, one in which the same judge said that various representations given by police were “at odds” with one another.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia arrested in Maryland in 2019
Abrego Garcia’s immigration troubles began in 2019, when the Salvadoran national was arrested outside of a Maryland Home Depot while soliciting work alongside three other men. The officer who pulled over to question them described them as loitering.
Attorneys for Abrego Garcia, who had no prior criminal record, said he stood next to two men he recognized from previously seeking work outside the store, but “he had never interacted with them in any other context.”
When a Prince George’s County police officer approached and later arrested three of the four men, Abrego Garcia was identified as a member of MS-13 because he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat.
The State Department has designated MS-13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, as a terrorist organization. The gang was created by Salvadoran immigrants in the U.S. before it gained a foothold in Central America, according to officials.
This undated photo shows Kilmar Abrego Garcia. (Murray Osorio PLLC via AP)
On a “Gang Field Interview Sheet,” police wrote that Abrego Garcia was “wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie with decorations of rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents on the separate denominations.”
“Officers know such clothing to be indicative of the Hispanic gang culture,” the form states, adding that the depiction on the hoodie was a reference to “see no evil, hear no evil and say no evil,” which they also argue is associated with MS-13.
They also cited a tip from a confidential informant who said Abrego Garcia was part of MS-13’s “Westerns” clique, which operates out of New York. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia say he has never lived in New York.
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Abrego Garcia was never charged with any crime stemming from the matter, but he was nonetheless detained by immigration authorities for entering the country illegally.
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When his attorneys at the time tried to contact Prince George’s County police to learn more about the gang accusation included on the field sheet, they were “informed that the detective had been suspended. A request to speak to other officers in the Gang Unit was declined.”
According to The New Republic, that officer was suspended for giving confidential information about a case to a sex worker.
The Prince George’s County Police Department declined to comment on the matter.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys say he was given no information about why he was arrested, but a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) form said he was arrested in connection with a murder investigation. That form also indicates Abrego Garcia denied being in a gang and had no prior criminal record.
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It was his bid to be released from custody that spurred a review by immigration Judge Elizabeth Kessler, who noted ICE’s reasoning for his arrest in regards to a murder investigation “does appear at odds with the Gang Field Interview Sheet, which states that the Respondent was approached because he and others were loitering outside of a Home Depot.”
She nonetheless declined to release Abrego Garcia as he asked for asylum, saying the confidential tip asserting he had ties to MS-13 “appears to be trustworthy.” At the same time, she expressed misgivings about authorities suggesting his clothing should be considered evidence that he was a member of the gang.
“The determination that the Respondent is a gang member appears to be trustworthy and is supported by other evidence in the record, namely, information contained in the Gang Field Interview Sheet. Although the Court is reluctant to give evidentiary weight to the Respondent’s clothing as an indication of gang affiliation, the fact that a ‘past, proven, and reliable source of information’ verified the Respondent’s gang membership, rank, and gang name is sufficient to support that the Respondent is a gang member,” Kessler wrote, referring to the informant’s tip.
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The Trump administration has said that two judges have found Abrego Garcia was a “verified” gang member — a reference to Kessler’s decision, which was upheld on appeal by another judge.
But Kessler only said the informant had identified Abrego Garcia as a gang member, and her decision was limited to the question of whether to release him from custody.
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Later that year, Abrego Garcia married his wife, a U.S. citizen, and applied for asylum. While immigration Judge David Jones in that case did not grant him asylum, he did award Abrego Garcia “withholding of removal” — barring his deportation to El Salvador. Immigration prosecutors under the first Trump administration did not appeal his ruling.
Jones’s decision was made on the basis of the determination that Abrego Garcia could be in danger if he returned to El Salvador, where the gang Barrio 18 threatened to kill him as they allegedly demanded increasing payments while extorting his mother’s pupusa business. These threats prompted the family to flee to the U.S. when Abrego Garcia was a teenager.
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Despite that order, Abrego Garcia was sent to a notorious Salvadoran prison on March 15, something a Justice Department lawyer later told the court was due to an “administrative error,” acknowledging he was barred from being removed. That attorney has since been suspended by the administration, which has criticized the lawyer for his statements.
The Trump administration has sought to portray Abrego Garcia as a danger to society, pushing back at media reports that describe him as a “Maryland man” or “Maryland father,” which might have made the mistakenly deported man seem sympathetic.
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Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who traveled to El Salvador in a failed effort to visit Abrego Garcia, accused the Trump administration of lying about him, saying Salvadoran officials told him he has no criminal record in El Salvador.
“If you listen to President Trump and the Trump administration, you would think that the U.S. courts have found that Mr. Abrego Garcia is part of MS-13, but in fact, they have not found that,” Van Hollen told reporters in El Salvador.
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“In fact, recently, a U.S. federal court judge said that the Trump administration did not have evidence to support the claim that he had ever been part of MS-13. In fact, Mr. Abrego Garcia is legally in the United States. In fact, an immigration judge found years ago that it would put his life in danger if he was returned to El Salvador.”
“I want to emphasize that President Trump and our Attorney General Pam Bondi and the vice president of the United States are lying when they say that Abrego Garcia has been charged with a crime or was part of MS-13. That is a lie,” he added.
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In a late Wednesday email from the Department of Homeland Security, the department offered what it said is “THE REAL STORY,” writing that Abrego Garcia was arrested outside the Home Depot with drugs and rolls of cash.
But those details appear nowhere in the court documents shared by the Trump administration, and the Gang Field Interview Sheet notes the “rolls of money” were designs on the hoodie he was wearing, not a physical item in his possession.
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The White House has since released Maryland court documents indicating that Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, filed for a protective order against him in 2021, claiming he punched and scratched her, ripping off her shirt and bruising her. The Department of Homeland Security only released three out of five total pages of the document.
Protective orders in domestic violence cases are typically swiftly approved on a temporary basis. A review of Maryland court records by The Hill indicates the protective order was dismissed the next month when Vasquez Sura failed to appear in court.
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The family’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment on the matter, but in a statement to Newsweek, Vasquez Sura said she made the report out of caution, but said the incident is no excuse for deporting him to a foreign prison.
“After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution following a disagreement with Kilmar by seeking a civil protective order, in case things escalated. Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process. We were able to work through the situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling,” she said.
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“Our marriage only grew stronger in the years that followed. No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect. But that is not a justification for ICE’s action of abducting him and deporting him to a country where he was supposed to be protected from removal. Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him and demand justice for him.”
Vasquez Sura has pressed for the return of her husband, telling reporters before a Tuesday court hearing she was “pleading with the Trump administration and [El Salvador’s] Bukele administration: Stop playing political games with the life of Kilmar.”
Many Trump administration officials say Kilmar Abrego Garcia will not return
While the Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, Bondi has said that would mean only supplying a plane to return him if El Salvador agrees to release him. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has said he will not do so, echoing Trump administration claims that Abrego Garcia is a “terrorist.”
Van Hollen accused the Trump administration of flouting the Supreme Court’s order, relaying that U.S. Embassy staff in El Salvador said they had “received no direction from the Trump administration to help facilitate his release.”
A federal judge also blasted the Trump administration Tuesday for failing to take steps to secure his return.
However, numerous Trump administration officials have said Abrego Garcia will never return to the U.S.
“If he ever ends up back in the United States, he would immediately be deported again. Nothing will change the fact that Abrego Garcia will never be a ‘Maryland father.’” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday.
“He will never live in the United States of America again.”
