10
Loading video...
By Billal Rahman and Dan Gooding
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, has responded after the Trump administration revealed a second allegation of domestic abuse against the Salvadoran immigrant mistakenly deported in March.
In an email to Newsweek on Thursday, Vasquez Sura wrote: "After the trauma of his time in ICE detention and the struggles we faced during the pandemic, I sought a temporary protective order, but through counseling and faith, Kilmar and I healed, reunited as a stronger couple, and now our family needs him home."
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) argued the allegations, later rescinded, showed the Salvadoran did not belong in the U.S.
Read More on Politics
Why It Matters
Vasquez Sura has been at the forefront of the fight to bring her husband back to Maryland from El Salvador's CECOT prison, and has stated before that their issues at home were private and had been worked on. The documents shared by DHS include details on her withdrawing the allegations.
...
What To Know
On Wednesday, DHS released an August 2020 filing, which laid out multiple alleged instances of domestic abuse by Abrego Garcia. In the document, Vasquez Sura said he had been physically and mentally abusive towards her.
When a similar filing from 2021 was released by DHS in mid-April, she said that the couple had worked through their problems, guided by their Christian faith and with the help of counseling.
The year before the alleged abuse, Abrego Garcia had been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), following a police department's determination that he was a member of the MS-13 gang - based on his clothing and an anonymous tip-off.
An immigration judge ruled in 2013 that Abrego Garcia, who had entered the U.S. illegally around five years earlier, was deportable but that he could not be removed to his home country of El Salvador, due to fears of violence from another gang: Barrio 18.
Between 2019 and 2025, Abrego Garcia checked in with ICE regularly and started working, but in March he was detained by agents and swiftly taken out of Maryland, before an "administrative error" led to his removal to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
Vasquez Sura has insisted that her husband is a loving father and that he needs to return to the U.S. His attorneys say he is not a MS-13 member and that the government has failed to produce sufficient evidence to prove otherwise.
A U.S. District Judge ordered in April that the White House work to bring Abrego Garcia back from the CECOT prison where he was being held, alongside over 200 others removed under the AEA. The Supreme Court essentially backed this but, so far, there has been little movement on returning the immigrant.
Trump administration officials have insisted that if Abrego Garcia was to be brought back and face a full immigration trial, he would still be deported.
What People Are Saying
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, in a press release: "The facts are clear: Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a violent illegal alien who abuses women and children. He had no business being in our country and we are proud to have deported this violent thug. We have now found two petitions for protection against him, in addition to the fact that he entered the country illegally and is a confirmed member of MS-13. Our country is safer with him gone."
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, in the Oval Office April 14: "I don't have the power to return him to the United States."
Robert L. Cena, acting field office director for Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO) in Harlingen, in a sworn statement filed in U.S. District Court: "Through administrative error, Abrego-Garcia was removed from the United States to El Salvador. This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia's purported membership in MS-13."
What's Next
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland has ordered the government resume its updates on the efforts to return Abrego Garcia, with officials called to court in the next week.
Update 5/1/25, 3:40 p.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines