A federal judge is expected to hold an audience on Friday in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man that the Trump administration admitted that she had accidentally sent to a notorious megajail to El Salvador.
GARCIA – A protected legal resident who has lived in Maryland since 2011 and is from Salvador – was sent to Salvador on March 15 due to what the Trump administration described as “administrative error” in court documents on Monday.
Garcia and his wife – Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, who is American citizen – Published legal action last week asking the judge to the government to return it to the United States. Sura addressed journalists before the hearing scheduled for 1 p.m. HE Friday in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“Kilmar, if you can hear me, I miss you so much,” said Sura through tears. “And I do my best to fight for you and our children.”
In their trial, The couple, who has a 5 -year -old son, also asks the government to cease payments to operators of the Maximum Security Terrorist Center where they are held, known by their Spanish Acronym Cecot.
“Not only was the applicant Abrego Garcia moved to the Salvador in direct violation of the federal law, but to worsen things, the defendants pay the government of El Salvador a sum of money to incarcerate it in the infamous prison of Cecot, where he is subject to torture and an imminent risk of death,” the prosecutor of Garcia wrote in their petition.
The Trump administration argued on Monday that the American courts do not have the power to request the extradition of Garcia. He has also repeatedly accused Garcia of being a member of the MS-13 gang.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Internal Security said in a statement on Tuesday that “the individual in question is a member of the brutal gang MS-13-we have intelligence reports that he is involved in the trafficking in human beings.”
Trump senior officials, including vice-president JD Vance, also said this week that Garcia was a member of the MS-13.
Garcia’s lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg denied government claims that he is affiliated with the gang. Instead, Garcia came to the United States of Salvador in 2011 to flee the violence of the gangs, said Sandoval-Moshenberg, adding that the members of a gang are leaving him to try to extort his parents. His lawyer also noted that Garcia has no criminal record in the United States or Salvador.
“First of all, if they thought they had committed a crime, they could stop him and try to condemn him with this crime,” Sandoval-Moshenberg told MSNBC on Wednesday. “Second, if they thought he was expensive on the basis of his gang membership, they could have brought charges before the immigration court.”
“They did nothing about these things. They just stuck it on a plane,” he added.
Sandoval-Moshenberg accused the government of not even being “willing to ask the government of El Salvador to return it to our guard”.
“Honestly, I expect that if we were making good faith, ask the government of El Salvador. I think there is a high probability that the Salvador government will gain this request,” he said on Wednesday. “It is incredible for me that they did not even pick up the phone to simply ask this man.”
In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Vance described Garcia as “not exactly father of the year”.
Speaking with NBC News on Friday, Sura retaliated by saying: “He is wrong. My husband is the best father. He cares about our son who is in the spectrum of high autism and it is difficult, but he is able to manage him.”
Garcia’s deportation seems to coincide with the departure of three planes carrying non-citizens in Salvador on March 15, which the Trump administration accused of being members of Venezuelan gangs.
Internal security secretary Kristi Noem visited the prison last week. She posed for a photo session before cells in the prison filled with deported men, whose heads were forcibly shaved by the authorities and were shirtless.
