25 Facts About Kilmar Abrego Garcia
The truth is not as tidy as either side would like you to believe.
I wasn’t planning to write again (yet) about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the migrant deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador despite an order protecting him from being sent there, but I continue to be frustrated by politicians from both parties (and their associated media outlets) telling only half the story and skewing the facts in one direction or the other.
Several readers have also reached out to me with questions in the past few days about Abrego Garcia, which gives me the sense that there’s a lot of ambient confusion about what to believe in this story. In fairness, there’s a lot that’s confusing about it: Was he a member of MS-13? Did he have legal status in the U.S.? Did the Supreme Court say he has to be returned? As it happens, none of these questions have easy “yes” or “no” answers.
Many liberals would have you believe that Abrego Garcia was a “Maryland man” who was living in the U.S. legally. Many conservatives would have you believe that he was a convicted member of MS-13. And both sides would tell you that the Supreme Court sided unanimously with them. All of those statements are exaggerations: they stem from some true fact, but don’t tell you the full story.
So today, I’d like to lay out the truth — as messy as it may be. There will be some facts here that may bolster the liberal side of the case. There will be some facts that bolster the conservative side. But they are all facts, plain and simple. At certain points, I will footnote places where public figures have made statements that contradict the truth. At the end, you can decide for yourself how to feel about Abrego Garcia and his case. If you know people who have been similarly confused by the dispute, feel free to send this primer their way.
It seems to me that many people are opining on this case without reading the relevant court documents and filings. But I have. So here follows 25 facts about Kilmar Abrego Garcia:
Kilmar Abrego Garcia entered the United States illegally in around 2011 (according to his lawyers) or 2012 (according to a police report). He would have been around 16 years old. He has previously acknowledged crossing the border illegally, and his lawyers do not dispute it now.
In March 2019, Abrego Garcia was arrested in a Home Depot parking lot along with three other men, one of whom police officers said they recognized as an active MS-13 gang member with an “extensive criminal history.” Abrego Garcia’s lawyers say he was at the Home Depot to “solicit employment” and that he recognized two of the other men “from prior occasions at the Home Depot” but had “never interacted with them in any other context.” The lawyers say he was chatting with the other men “to pass the time.”
According to the police report, when an officer approached the four men, “two of the individuals reached into their waistbands and discarded several unknown items under a parked vehicle.” The report says that “two small plastic bottles containing marijuana was [sic] located on scene.”
The police officers observed that Abrego Garcia was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat, which has long been described as the “hat of choice” for MS-13 members. (The logo resembles the “devil horns” hand sign often used by the gang.) He was also wearing a “hoodie with rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents on the separate denominations,” which the officers believed to be associated with the MS-13 motto “ver, oir y callar,” or “see no evil, hear no evil and say no evil.”1
A confidential informant told the police officers that Abrego Garcia was an active member of MS-13 in the “Western” clique. (Abrego Garcia’s lawyers note that that clique is based in New York, where he has never lived.) The informant, a “past proven and reliable source of information,” said that Abrego Garcia held the rank of “Chequeo” in MS-13 and the moniker “Chele.” An informant also said that another of the four men was an MS-13 member (in addition to the one that officers already knew to be a gang member). No gang affiliation was determined for the fourth man, although the officers noted that “MS-13 gang members are only allowed to hang around other members or prospects for the gang.” The fourth man was released.
Abrego Garcia and the two other men believed by police to be MS-13 members were kept overnight in a local jail and then transported to an ICE field office the next day. There, Abrego Garcia denied being an MS-13 member but “freely admitted” to being an El Salvador citizen “present in the United States illegally,” without documents that would allow him to remain here, according to an official form. A deportation officer administratively charged him as an “alien present without admission or parole” under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a deportable offense. The form describes Abrego Garcia as having a “gang affiliation” but “no criminal history.”
The police report contained some internal inconsistencies, and his lawyers later sought to speak to the detective who wrote it, but were told he had been suspended. According to the New Republic, the detective had been suspended for giving confidential information about a case to a sex worker. The detective was indicted for the offense and pleaded guilty.
Abrego Garcia was kept in custody by ICE. He requested bond, but an immigration judge declined to release him, reasoning in April 2019 that he failed to prove that he “would not pose a danger to others, as the evidence shows that he is a verified member of MS-13.”2 The judge was “reluctant to give evidentiary weight” to his clothing, but appeared swayed by the confidential informant. The judge also noted that Abrego Garcia had failed to appear at hearings for traffic violations in the past (he said he was unaware of the hearings, but acknowledged failing to follow up on the citations). His “lack of diligence in following up on his traffic court cases indicates that he cannot be trusted to appear in immigration court” if released, the judge said.
Abrego Garcia appealed the denial of his bond request, but the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld the immigration judge’s ruling in December 2019, saying that the judge “appropriately considered allegations of gang affiliation.”
Abrego Garcia married Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen who was then pregnant with his child, while in custody. (In deeming him a potential flight risk, the immigration judge had noted the fact that he was only engaged to Vasquez Sura, and that “any immigration relief that he can be expected to gain from a marital relationship with her in the future is speculative.”)
About seven months before Abrego Garcia’s arrest, in August 2018, the father of two of Vasquez Sura’s children had filed a court document (obtained by ABC News) that said he feared for their children’s lives, in part, because Vasquez Sura was “dating a gang member.” The man did not identify who he was referring to. According to Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, Abrego Garcia met Vasquez Sura around 2016 and they “eventually became romantically involved” thereafter. They moved in together around December 2018, at which point she was already pregnant with their child.
After his June 2019 marriage, Abrego Garcia filed for relief from deportation under three authorities: asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). Abrego Garcia explained that he had reason to fear being deported back to El Salvador because the Barrio 18 gang had threatened to kill him and his family because of their pupusa business.
At subsequent hearings in August and September 2019, an immigration judge agreed that he was deportable as charged (which Abrego Garcia also acknowledged) but then considered his three requests for relief. The judge denied the asylum request, because it could only be filed within a year after arriving in the U.S., a deadline which had long passed. He also denied the CAT request as lacking evidence.
But the judge granted Abrego Garcia’s request for withholding of removal, finding a “clear probability” that he would be persecuted in El Salvador. Withholding of removal is a sort of limbo status. It guarantees that the recipient cannot be deported to a specific country (in this case, El Salvador). But there is “no legal impediment” to the government deporting the recipient anywhere else at any time, as Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have acknowledged.3
But, to do so, the U.S. would have to find a third country willing to take the deportee. So, most recipients remain in the U.S. (According to the American Immigration Council, in 2017, just 1.6% of people granted withholding of removal were deported to a third country.) Therefore, Abrego Garcia continued to live in the U.S. He checked in with ICE every year as required. At any time in this period, ICE could have deported him to a third country (provided that they find one that would take him), but they did not.
It was during this period, in 2021, that Vasquez Sura (Abrego Garcia’s wife) requested a protective order against him, according to documents obtained by ABC News. She alleged that he had “punched and scratched her eye,” causing her to bleed; “ripped [her] shorts and shirt off”; and grabbed her by the arm when she tried to run away, leaving a bruise. She also alleged that he had previously hit her with a boot and in the eye. “At this point I am afraid to be close to him,” she wrote. The protective order was dismissed because Vasquez Sura failed to appear in court. She now says that “we were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling.”
In 2022, according to NewsNation, Abrego Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol for “illegally transporting eight immigrants from Houston to Maryland.” He was not arrested or charged.
Abrego Garcia was driving in March 2025 when he was pulled over by ICE officers who told him, according to his lawyers, that his “status has changed.” (It is unknown exactly why, although President Trump had recently deemed MS-13 a “foreign terrorist organization” and expressed interest in deporting MS-13 members. Abrego Garcia would presumably have shown up in the ICE database as a deportable immigrant with alleged MS-13 ties.) He was then detained.
His lawyers say that he was moved several times but told he would go before an immigration judge. He didn’t, and was instead deported to El Salvador to be detained at the notorious CECOT prison along with other alleged gang members. Abrego Garcia was deported under Title 8 of the U.S. Code (not the Alien Enemies Act, which was used only for alleged members of a different gang).
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys filed a lawsuit seeking his return. An ICE official acknowledged that his deportation to El Salvador was an “administrative error,” but said it 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.”4 The government argued that the error could not be reversed since Abrego Garcia was no longer in U.S. custody and was now in the custody of his home country.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis sided with Abrego Garcia, ordering the government on April 4 to “facilitate and effectuate” his return by the end of the day on April 7. An appeals court upheld her order, which Chief Justice John Roberts then paused before the deadline.
On April 10, the full Supreme Court vacated the deadline in Xinis’ order — since it had already passed — and said the rest of the order “remains in effect but requires clarification.” The justices said that Xinis was correct to order the government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return and to “ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” The unsigned order also told Xinis to clarify what she meant by “effectuate,” and to do so in a manner that gives “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”5
Hours later, Xinis issued an amended order directing the government to “take all available steps” to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return “as soon as possible.” (She did not list any specific steps, set a new deadline, or mention the word “effectuate.”) The Supreme Court had also instructed the Trump administration to “be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.” To that end, Xinis directed the government to answer three questions — where Abrego Garcia is, what steps they had taken to facilitate his return, and what steps they planned to take next — by the next morning.
The administration responded that they were “unable to provide the information requested by the Court” in such a short timeframe. Xinis wrote on April 11 that the government had “failed to comply” with her order seeking information and directed them to file answers to her three questions every day by 5 p.m. (They have submitted the filings, although they have often contained little in the way of information.)
On April 15, Xinis said at a hearing that the government had done “nothing” to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, as she had ordered. The government said that they had removed “domestic obstacles” that would allow him to re-enter the U.S. if he were to be released by El Salvador, but that it was up to El Salvador to release him.6 Xinis said that definition of “facilitate” contradicts the “plain meaning of the word” and ordered a two-week discovery process to determine whether the government is complying with her order.
And that brings us up to the present. The case almost seems perfectly engineered to create confusion: Abrego Garcia has not been convicted as a member of MS-13, but evidence does exist to tie him to the gang. Abrego Garcia was not living in the U.S. legally, but he did have an unusual limbo status that prevents his deportation to a specific country. The Supreme Court did not quite rule for the Trump administration, but it didn’t fully rule against them either. They issued a confusing order about a confusing case.
The case also hinges on some amount of happenstance. As mentioned, it is unusual for the U.S. to deport recipients of withholding of removal orders, because it is often difficult to find foreign governments that will accept deportees who aren’t from their country. It just so happens that the one country the U.S. found to do that (El Salvador) was the one country that Abrego Garcia couldn’t be sent to.
If, say, Venezuela had built a mega-prison and agreed to detain Abrego Garcia and other U.S. deportees there, it is likely that none of us would know his name.
Now that you have the facts, you can draw your own conclusions. Some liberals may be generally opposed to deporting immigrants here illegally who have U.S.-citizen families and haven’t been convicted of crimes, and may be sympathetic to Abrego Garcia on those grounds. Some conservatives may view the problem of illegal immigration as a large enough crisis that they have no issue with deporting one alleged gang member if it means tackling the broader issue.
It all comes down to values: whether you prefer every case to be handled by the books, or whether you’d rather the bigger issue be solved as quickly as possible; whether you are inclined to sympathize with someone here illegally and be skeptical of allegations made about them, or whether you’re inclined to want that person out of the country and to believe the government’s case against them.
Personally, it strikes me that the “correct” answer from a rule-of-law perspective — independent of whether one sympathizes with Abrego Garcia, as a “Maryland father,” or doesn’t, as an alleged gang member accused of spousal abuse — would be Abrego Garcia being returned to the U.S., since he wasn’t allowed to be deported to El Salvador, but then deported somewhere else, since he has been deportable for the past six years. (Of course, that doesn’t answer the question of how much a court can order the government to do to bring about that outcome. But, setting aside how we might get there, that strikes me as the outcome that most literally follows U.S. immigration law.)
But it doesn’t quite make for a catchy chant: What do we want? For Abrego Garcia to be returned to the U.S. immediately and then deported somewhere else! When do want it? Now!
It seems to me like that outcome would be A) in accordance with the law, and B) perfectly designed to please absolutely no one. So, instead of adopting that ideologically-inconvenient-but-probably-legally-correct middle ground, many figures on both sides have rushed to promote hard-line stances. Taken to its logical conclusion, the conservative argument would suggest that the government could deport anyone by accident and then have no responsibility to try to return them, since the person is no longer in U.S. custody.
Meanwhile, many liberals have gone quite far in rallying around Abrego Garcia as an individual, a stance they may come to regret, and suggested that he was “legally in the U.S., just like all the rest of us,” in the words of Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). Taken to its logical conclusion, that would suggest that people in Abrego Garcia’s limbo space (crossed the border illegally, allowed to be deported, but not to a specific country) have the right to remain here permanently, which is not how immigration law currently treats them.
In this case, the facts support neither side’s narrative in full. That may make them inconvenient. But they are still facts.
This is not the same as being “found with rolls of cash and drugs,” as Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin has claimed. The only reference in the police report to “rolls” of money is about an image on his hoodie. (A form separately indicated that he had $1,178 in his possession when arrested.) The only reference to drugs does not make clear who had the drugs.
This is not the same as being a “convicted MS-13 gang member,” as Vice President JD Vance has claimed.
This is not the same as being “legally in the U.S., just like all the rest of us,” as Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) has claimed.
The government has fired the immigration lawyer who initially argued the case, alleging that he sabotaged it. As recently as last week, Solicitor General John Sauer acknowledged that sending Abrego Garcia to El Salvador was an “administrative error,” although he also argued that the designation of MS-13 as a terrorist organization meant that Abrego Garcia’s withholding of removal no longer applied. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have disputed that interpretation of the withholding of removal statute.
This is not the same as the Supreme Court ruling unanimously either for Abrego Garcia or the government — for two reasons: 1) The ruling was unsigned, with no indication of how each justice voted. No justices publicly noted their dissents, but theoretically, up to four justices could have dissented and merely chosen not to say. We have no way of knowing. 2) The order was vague, leaving more questions open than answered. It accepted a key argument of Abrego Garcia’s lawyers (that the government should facilitate his return) and of the government’s (that the courts should give deference to the executive branch in telling them how to go about doing that). This is how both sides were able to declare victory from the same order.
Note that, in a similar case in Trump’s first term, the U.S. did expend resources to retrieve a man who was deported because of an administrative error, according to the New York Times.
Respectfully, your framing of this as a “both sides are wrong” situation misses the point. Perhaps liberals are mistaken to rally around the character of Abrego Garcia. But his moral character is not the issue.
It is much more troubling that conservatives are rallying around the position that the Trump administration has taken: they can violate the law and a unanimous Supreme Court order as much as they want, if it is in the name of the cause of border security. That is nothing short of a constitutional crisis.
Incredibly insightful write up. Very helpful in clarifying the facts but as others have noted, his moral character is not the issue. Yes I know that there are people out there presenting him as father of the year but that's not really what is at stake. It's the fact that the government under the present Administration sent him to the very place he was not supposed to be sent and are now refusing to return him for proper processing. If we uphold the law only when we agree with a person's moral character then there would be a lot less work for defense attorneys. Everyone receives due process or no one receives due process. End of story.