In the 22 days since Maryland’s resident, Kilmar Abrego García, was mistakenly deported to a notoriously violent prison in El Salvador, his little son has sought comfort in the aroma of his missing father’s clothes.
“It shows me how much he lost to Kilmar,” said Abrego García’s wife, Jennifer Vásquez Sura, in judicial documents. “He has been finding Kilmar’s work shirts and smelling them, to smell the family aroma of Kilmar.”
Abrego García, 29, who worked as a sheet metal and was chasing his official license, was arrested in an Ikea parking lot and arrested on March 12, with his 5 -year -old son in the car.
An immigration judge in 2019 had given him protection to be deported back to El Salvador, where Abrego García is likely to face persecution by local gangs. He had a legal work permit issued by the Department of National Security, said his lawyer.
However, he was sent back to his native El Salvador, which the administration of President Donald Trump acknowledged on Monday was an “administrative error.”
In spite of this, the White House officials have argued against bringing it back, claiming without showing proof that it has ties with the MS-13 gang. The Administration also says that it lacks the power to seek its return from the Government of El Salvador, noting that, in the best of the United States, it could order the White House to “supply, or even a cashier, a close ally.”
The wrong deportation of Abrego García has outraged many while raising concerns about the expulsion of non -citizens who were granted permission to be in the United States.
‘Just ask them well’
Abrego García’s family and lawyers have denied gang ties and argue that the United States has little evidence to support their claim. In the judicial documents presented on Wednesday, their lawyers argued that the error of the United States government must be corrected and that they return it.
Otherwise, the orders of the Immigration Court make no sense, because the government can deport whoever they want, where they want, when they want, “wrote lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg.
Sandoval-Moshenberg said that the United States has been paying the Government of El Salvador to imprison Abrego García and other deportees. He argued that efforts to return would probably be successful: “First, ask them to return us.”
“His argument that there is nothing they can do to recover this type is significantly weakened by the fact that, on Wednesday of last week, they put Kristi Noem within that prison,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said to Associated Press in an interview, referring to the DHS secretary.
“They did not ask and said:” By the way, you obtained this type. We are wrong. Can we have it back, please? “He said, adding that the United States previously” moved mountains “to return people by mistake.
Ohio’s law professor, César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, said it is “reasonable” to ask the Trump administration to return to Abrego García, but the courts have little appeal if the White House refuses.
This is because Abrego García is not an American citizen and is out of the country, said the professor. The Supreme Court has long sustained that Congress, which works with the executive branch, can decide who is allowed to enter and under what terms.
“I do not know of a single instance in which a federal court ordered a presidential administration to allow a particular person who is not an American citizen in the United States,” said García Hernández.
The erroneous deportation of Abrego García is “truly worrying,” said the professor, because “who can say that they will not deport someone who has legal permission to live in the United States?”
Gangs and family pupusery
Abrego García said he fled from El Salvador because a gang, neighborhood 18, routinely extorted his parents’ businesses for “rent” money and threatened to kill him and his brother if the family did not comply, according to judicial documents in his case of immigration of 2019.
The family sold pupusas, the exclusive dish of El Salvador, which are flat tortilla bags that contain smoking mixtures of cheese, beans or tasty pig. Abrego García’s mother directed the business, Pupuseria Cecilia, out of her home. His father was a former police officer.
The family finally sent Abrego García’s brother to the United States, Abrego García was also sent to the United States after the gang tried to recruit repeatedly, they declared documents of the Immigration Court.
Abrego García arrived in the United States illegally from El Salvador around 2011, according to his lawyers, and went to Maryland to join his older brother, an American citizen.
The emigration of Abrego García de El Salvador was subject to an immigration hearing in October 2019 after it was arrested while looking for work and delivered to the application of immigration and customs of the United States after accusations about its gang membership.
ICE had argued against his release because the Local Police in Maryland had “verified” the membership of his gang, according to judicial records. Subsequently, Abrego García requested asylum, while his lawyer presented “voluminous” evidence that faced the threat of violence in El Salvador.
Abrego García’s lawyers also rejected MS-13’s claim, which was based on the accusations of a confidential informant, according to judicial documents. The informant claimed that Abrego García belonged to a MS-13 chapter in New York, where he had never lived.
An immigration judge denied the asylum application of Abrego García in October 2019, but gave him protection to be deported back to El Salvador. He was released and ICE did not appeal.
Later, Abrego García married Vásquez Sura, who is an American citizen, and the couple are parents of their son and their two children of a previous relationship.
