The wife of the Maryland dad deported “in error” to El Salvador by the Trump administration revealed her fears for her husband Wednesday.
Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura said that she realized her husband, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, had been taken to the infamous CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador on March 15 when she saw a photo posted by the country’s government.
“I’ve seen news of that prison,” she told CBS Mornings. “I know they take criminals there. And my husband’s not a criminal.”
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His family wasn’t given notice of his deportation to El Salvador. Vasquez Sura only figured out her husband was being held in CECOT by identifying him from his scars and tattoos in a press photo of inmates shared by the country’s government.
“When I saw it, I immediately broke down ‘cause I knew it was him,” she said. “I was scared for his life.”
Abrego Garcia was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on March 12 while he was driving his five-year-old son, who is autistic and disabled. Despite having been granted legal protection from being sent back to El Salvador by an immigration judge in 2019, he was deported to El Salvador three days later.
“He’s not a criminal,” Vasquez Sura said. “My husband is an amazing person. An amazing father.”
Vasquez Sura said that over those three days, she could only communicate with her husband over the phone. During their last phone call, he told her that he was going to be imprisoned in CECOT and that if she didn’t receive another call from him, it was because he had gotten deported.
“He never called,” Jennifer said. “I waited and waited. He never made that call.”
Vasquez Sura has not been able to speak to her husband since then. She has now filed a lawsuit at the federal district court in Maryland demanding that the U.S. government help bring her husband back to the country.
White House Press Secreatry Karoline Leavitt defended the decision to deport Abrego Garcia to reporters Tuesday, saying he was a “leader” in the MS-13 gang.
“The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang,” Leavitt said.
Abrego Garcia came to the country illegally when he was 16 in 2011, and was arrested by ICE in 2019. After months in ICE detention, he was released with a judge granting him “withholding of removal,” ruling that if he was sent back to El Salvador, he would be the target of gangs.
Vasquez Sura said that after his release, Abrego Garcia attended regular check-ins with ICE. She added that he attended college classes alongside working five days a week as a sheet metal worker. He was the family’s main breadwinner and helped take care of her two children from a previous marriage and their five-year-old son.
The Justice Department has said that because Abrego Garcia is now in El Salvador’s hands, they lack the authority to bring him back. They also added in a filing that there has been “no showing that El Salvador is even inclined to consider a request to release a detainee at the United States’ request.”
