What Happened
In 2019, an immigration judge protected Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador, citing gang violence there. He lived in Maryland with his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, and their children, with no U.S. criminal record. On March 15, 2025, ICE deported him to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison anyway — which the government later admitted in court was “an administrative error.”
Despite a Supreme Court order to “facilitate” his return, he remained in CECOT for months. DHS posted a 2021 protective order Vasquez Sura had filed and later dropped, exposing the family’s address online and forcing them into hiding, while publicly branding him an MS-13 member and trafficker without ever filing those charges.
The government returned him in June 2025, only to indict him in Tennessee on human smuggling charges, which he denied. He was detained again by ICE, released by court order in December, and in May 2026 a federal judge dismissed the criminal case entirely as “vindictive and selective” prosecution.
Since then, the administration has repeatedly tried to deport him to Liberia rather than Costa Rica, which has agreed to take him. Judge Paula Xinis has blocked each attempt, saying DHS has offered “one empty threat after another.”He’s currently out of ICE custody and he is living with his family in Maryland under supervised release while the fight over whether, and where, he can still be deported continues.
