A Maryland father who was erroneously deported back to El Salvador really did flee his home country to avoid gang recruitment, school records obtained by The Washington Post show.
There is no official evidence linking Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the MS-13 gang, despite repeated claims from Donald Trump’s administration.
The president and administration officials claim Abrego Garcia’s tattoos are evidence of alleged gang ties, but law enforcement officials and gang experts say they do not definitively indicate any gang affiliation.
Although the Salvadoran boy was of prime age to be recruited by MS-13, like many boys in his neighborhood, Abrego Garcia was not one of them, his teacher and a classmate said in the report provided to The Washington Post.
School records from 2003 to 2011 reportedly state that Abrego Garcia consistently demonstrated “very good conduct.”
His friends, however, did become concerned during his school years that Abrego Garcia may be having issues at home.
“He seemed sad, like his mind was on something else,” an anonymous classmate told the outlet.
Abrego Garcia fled to the United States in 2011 at age 16 to join his older brother after gang threats against him and his family, according to his attorneys.
Last month, Abrego Garcaa’s wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura told The Washington Post that her husband’s fears from childhood followed him for years, making him cry and sweat in his sleep.
“He never talked about them, but I could see it,” Vasquez Sura said.
Following a March traffic stop, Abrego Garcia was detained by federal agents and deported to El Salvador’s brutal Terrorism Confinement Center despite a court order preventing his removal from the country. He was later transferred to a Salvadoran prison for non-gang members.
He had been working as a sheet-metal apprentice and living with his wife and their 5-year-old child, both U.S. citizens, along with two other children from a previous relationship.
Last month, District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States.
The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed Xinis’s ruling and called his removal “illegal.”
Xinis has since clashed with government attorneys as they push to withhold details on what, if anything, has been done to return him.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled to El Salvador to meet Abrego Garcia as members of Congress demand the administration return him to U.S. soil, where government attorneys can present evidence against him to support his removal.
Maryland Rep. Glenn Ivey is now traveling to El Salvador to try and meet with Abrego Garcia.
“The court orders for him to come back so that he can have his day in court,” Ivey told WBAL News Radio. “We’re not afraid of him having his day in court. That’s what due process is all about. He needs to be brought back so he can have his day in court.”
Republicans have opposed efforts to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States, citing allegations of criminality and a protective order filed by his wife in 2020, which she later rescinded.
Ivey is expected to return from El Salvador on Tuesday.
