05/13/2026
The Indiana University Hoosiers track and field team just flew to their championship on the exact same plane that deported innocent father Kilmar Abrego Garcia to CECOT, the torture prison in El Salvador.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia has built a life in Maryland with his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, and their three American children. Two of their children have autism. A third has epilepsy. He worked as a union sheet metal apprentice in Baltimore.
In October 2019, an immigration judge granted Garcia "withholding of removal," finding he faced a clear probability of persecution in El Salvador. That order legally barred his deportation to El Salvador. It remained in effect on March 12, 2025, when ICE arrested him in a parking lot while he was with his five-year-old son.
Three days later, on March 15, GlobalX flight N630VA carried Garcia from Harlingen, Texas, to CECOT, El Salvador's mega-prison, in direct violation of the 2019 court order. The government later said this was an "administrative error."
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on April 10, 2025, that the government must facilitate Garcia's return. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled to El Salvador to see him. Garcia was returned to the United States on June 6, 2025, and was immediately indicted on charges stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in which he had received only a warning.
A federal judge found a "reasonable likelihood" that the prosecution was vindictive, noting that the charges were filed 903 days after the traffic stop and only after Garcia prevailed at the Supreme Court. The government has since attempted to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, and Liberia, countries with no connection to him.
His legal battle to remain in the U.S. is still ongoing today.
Just yesterday, Abrego Garcia was back in court fighting to remain in the U.S. as the DOJ plans to deport him to Liberia "within a matter of weeks."
