Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia? What to know about father deported to El Salvador

The story of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a father of three and a protected resident who was deported and imprisoned in El Salvador while accused of being a gang member, has taken center stage amid an ongoing immigration debate.

But who is he and how did his story unfold?

Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to the El Salvador prison in March, but the Trump administration has said it has no way to get him back. He was not deported under the Alien Enemies Act, but the administration has conceded that he shouldn’t have been sent to El Salvador.

Here's what to know.

Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia?

As it stands, Abrego Garcia's story begins and ends in his native El Salvador.

When he was a boy, a local gang extorted his family, tried to indoctrinate him and threatened to kill him, according to his immigration case. He fled to the U.S. at 16.

He was forced back last month at 29, mistakenly deported by Trump's administration to a notorious prison that observers say is rife with abuse.

In between was his American life: Working construction, getting married and raising children with disabilities, according to court records. He was also accused by police in Maryland of being an MS-13 gang member.

Abrego Garcia denied the allegation and was never charged, according to court records. A U.S. immigration judge ultimately granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador in 2019 because he likely faced persecution there by local gangs.

Attorneys for Abrego Garcia said there's no evidence of gang membership. They claim the U.S. government has the power to return him, while noting that it's paying El Salvador for his imprisonment.

Gang threats in El Salvador

Abrego Garcia grew up in El Salvador's capital city, San Salvador, according to court documents filed in U.S. immigration court in 2019. His father was a former police officer. His mother, Cecilia, sold pupusas, the nation's signature dish of flat tortilla pouches that hold steaming blends of cheese, beans or savory pork.

The entire family, including his parents, two sisters and older brother, ran the business from home, court records state. Abrego Garcia's job was to buy ingredients from the grocery store and make deliveries with his brother.

"Everyone in the town knew to get their pupusas from ‘Pupuseria Cecilia,’” his lawyers wrote.

A local gang, Barrio 18, began extorting the family for “rent money" and threatened to kill his older brother Cesar — or force him into their gang — if they weren't paid, court documents state. The family complied but eventually sent Cesar to the U.S.

Barrio 18 similarly targeted Abrego Garcia, according to his immigration case. When he was 12, the gang threatened to take him away until his father paid them “all of the money that they wanted.” They still watched him as he walked to and from school.

The family moved 10 minutes away, but the gang threatened to rape and kill Abrego Garcia's sisters, court records state. The family shut down the business, moved again and eventually sent Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

The family never went to authorities because of rampant police corruption, according to court filings. The gang continued to harass the family after they moved to Guatemala, which borders El Salvador.

Why was Abrego Garcia deported?

The White House described Abrego Garcia’s deportation to his native country as an “administrative error." It claims he's in MS-13, citing a 2019 allegation from Maryland police, and argues the U.S. government lacks the authority to get the Salvadoran national back from his native country.

In February, the Trump Administration designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization and sought to remove identified members “as expeditiously as possible,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court.

Abrego Garcia was pulled over March 12 outside an IKEA in Baltimore with his son, according to court records. An agent called Vasquez Sura and said she had 10 minutes to retrieve their son or ICE would request child protective services.

Abrego Garcia called his wife from jail and said authorities pressed him about MS-13, according to court documents. They asked about a photo they had of him playing basketball on a public court, and his family’s visits to a restaurant serving Mexican and Salvadoran food.

“He would repeat the truth again and again — that he was not in a gang,” Vasquez Sura stated in court documents.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration, in its court filings, has pointed to the confidential informant in Prince George's County who deemed him to be a member of MS-13.

Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, where inmates are packed into cells and never allowed outside. The nation's justice minister has said that those held there would never return to their communities.

Vasquez Sura recognized Abrego Garcia by his tattoos and head scars in photos from the prison, where she saw video of him being dragged by guards, according to court documents.

The case has sparked nationwide concern as court filings claim the only evidence used to arrest Abrego Garcia was an anonymous tip and the fact that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat when he was arrested in 2019. He was never charged with a crime at that time, however.

“On March 12, my husband Kilmar was abducted and disappeared by the Trump administration," his wife, Jennifer Vasquez, said last week.

Abrego Garcia's family and lawmakers called for his safe return as efforts to bring him home stalled with a Supreme Court ruling.

Chief Justice John Roberts agreed Monday to pause a deadline for the Trump administration to bring him back to the U.S., despite a federal judge ruling his removal had "no legal grounds."

"Kilmar was kidnapped ... and sent to a hideous prison," Rep. Jesus Chuy Garcia said Thursday. "And the question now is: 'Who will be next?'"

How did Kilmar Abrego Garcia come to the US?

Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011, according to documents filed in his immigration case. He joined Cesar, now a U.S. citizen, in Maryland and found work in construction.

About five years later, Abrego Garcia met Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, the records say. In 2018, after she learned she was pregnant, he moved in with her and her two children. They lived in Prince George’s County, just outside Washington.

In 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot looking for work when he was arrested by county police, according to court filings. Detectives asked if he was a gang member. After explaining he wasn’t, he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Abrego Garcia later told an immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released. Vasquez Sura was five months into a high-risk pregnancy.

ICE, however, alleged that he was a certified gang member based on information that came from a confidential informant used by county police, records state. Police also cited his Chicago bulls hat and jersey.

According to Abrego Garcia’s attorneys in his current case, the criminal informant had alleged that Abrego Garcia belonged to an MS-13 chapter in New York, where he has never lived.

The information was enough for an immigration judge in 2019 to keep Abrego Garcia in jail as his immigration case continued, court records state. The judge said the informant was proven and reliable and had verified his gang membership and rank.

Abrego Garcia later married Vasquez Sura in a Maryland detention center, according to court filings. She gave birth while he was still in jail.

In October 2019, an immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s asylum request but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador because of a “well-founded fear” of gang persecution, according to his case. He was released and ICE did not appeal.

Since then, Abrego Garcia has checked in with ICE yearly while the Department of Homeland Security issued him a work permit, his attorneys said in court filings. Abrego Garcia joined a union and was employed full time as a sheet metal apprentice.

He and Vasquez Sura were raising three kids, including their 5-year-old son, who has autism, is deaf in one ear and unable to verbally communicate, according to the complaint filed against the Trump administration. They're also raising a 9-year-old with autism and a 10-year-old with epilepsy.

What's the latest on the case?

Trump's top advisers and Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, said Monday that they have no basis for the small Central American nation to return Abrego Garcia, a U.S. father who was mistakenly deported there last month.

Bukele called the idea “preposterous” even though the U.S. Supreme Court has called on the administration to “facilitate” Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return.

Trump administration officials emphasized that Abrego Garcia, who was sent to a notorious gang prison in El Salvador, was a citizen of that country and that the U.S. has no say in his future. And Bukele, who has been a vital partner for the Trump administration in its deportation efforts, said “of course" he would not release him back to U.S. soil.

“The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” Bukele, seated alongside Trump, told reporters in the Oval Office Monday. “I don't have the power to return him to the United States."

Should El Salvador want to return Abrego Garcia, the U.S. would “facilitate it, meaning provide a plane,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said.

But “first and foremost, he was illegally in our country, and he had been illegally in our country,” she said. “That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us.”

Trump indicated over the weekend that he would return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. if the high court’s justices said to bring him back, saying “I have great respect for the Supreme Court.” But the tone from top administration officials was sharply different on Monday.

“He's a citizen of El Salvador,” said Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff. “So it's very arrogant, even for American media, to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens.”

Bondi asserted that two immigration court judges — who are under Justice Department purview — found that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13, although the man’s attorneys say the government has provided no evidence that he was affiliated with MS-13 or any other gang.

"They're saying the quiet part aloud," Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "If they get away with it now, they'll do it to anyone."

The Democratic governor and vocal critic of President Donald Trump called the decision to not fight for Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return "cruel" and "unconstitutional."

"No one should be above the law, most especially the President," he wrote. "Ignoring a Supreme Court ruling to facilitate Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return isn't just cruel; it's unconstitutional."

What is MS-13?

MS-13 gang, or Mara Salvatrucha, was one of eight Latin American criminal organizations declared foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration last month.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, the gang was "formed by Salvadoran immigrants that came to the United States in order to escape the civil war in their home country." The group originated as a neighborhood street gang in Los Angeles, but grew into a transnational gang based in El Salvador.

"Some of its members were trained in guerilla warfare and the use of military weapons. The gang is well-organized and is heavily involved in lucrative illegal enterprises, being notorious for its use of violence to achieve its objectives," the department stated. "Fear and intimidation are used in extorting payments from any legitimate or illegitimate business owners for the right to conduct their business in MS-13 territory."

It has members in Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico and thousands of members across the U.S. with numerous branches, or “cliques.”

How did the Chicago Bulls attire play a role?

In the 2019 arrest, Prince George's County police officers produced a Gang Field Interview Sheet for ICE that “explained that the only reason to believe Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was a gang member was that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie; and that a confidential informant advised that he was an active member of MS-13 with the Westerns clique,” court documents state.

Court documents released in March also showed Homeland Security guidance listed possible "identifiers" of notorious Latino gangs. Though it largely centered on Venezuela's Tren de Aragua, the documents also make some mention of MS-13.

According to the documents, Tren de Aragua members "favor the Chicago Bulls basketball jersey, specifically Michael Jordan, jerseys with the number '23,' and Jordan 'Jump Man' footwear/sneakers." MS-13 gang members also rely on tattoos and other identifiers to signify gang members, the documents mention.