New video, audio of past incidents involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia released
WASHINGTON - Kilmar Abrego Garcia's legal team has doubled down on requests for more information about his detention and efforts to get him back and court-ordered deadlines are back on track after a week-long pause.
Abrego Garcia's team will tell the court the final list of questions they want to ask and documents they are seeking from Trump officials regarding his detention, deportation and potential release.
The DOJ has until Monday to object or assert some kind of privilege that would prevent them from answering. It's a tight turnaround but comes after both sides had agreed — inexplicably — to a week-long pause.
2020 Protective Order
New audio of Kilmar Abrego Garcia's wife requesting protective order released
USA Today released audio of Kilmar Abrego Garcia's wife Jennifer Vasquez pleading with a judge to get a temporary protective order against him in August 2020. Jenifer continues to fight for Abrego Garcia's return — showing up to court hearings and speaking on Capitol Hill. She says she wants his safe return for their family including a five-year-old son they share together.
The audio:
USA Today released audio of Kilmar Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez, pleading with a judge to get a temporary protective order against him in August 2020.
"I came to fill out a protective order. I think it was in December but I didn't show up to the court because his family, like, washed my brain and not to do it, so I didn't do anything," Vasquez says in the recording. "But after that, it was like i would call the police…I have a lot of police reports and I kept trying to get to the basement to try to open the door and then like he pushed me."
In response to the leaked audio, Jennifer issued a statement saying, "after the trauma of his time in ICE detention and the struggles we faced during the pandemic, I sought a temporary protective order, but through counseling and faith, Kilmar and I healed, reunited as a stronger couple, and now our family needs him home."
Jennifer continues to fight for Abrego Garcia's return, showing up to court hearings and speaking on Capitol Hill. She says she wants his safe return for their family, including a five-year-old son they share together.
While allegations of abuse are disturbing and harrowing for a family to endure, they are not relevant to the legal issue at hand — that Abrego Garcia was denied due process when he was mistakenly deported by the government.
The Supreme Court has affirmed an order that the government facilitate his release from custody in El Salvador.
2022 Traffic Stop
New video shows 2022 traffic stop involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia
New video shows a November 2022 traffic stop involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador. No charges came from the stop. NOTE: Some explicit language is used by officers
New video:
Also released on Friday was video of a 2022 traffic stop involving Abrego Garcia.
He was pulled over in Cookeville, Tenn. on Nov. 30, allegedly for speeding. The video shows a calm, cooperative Abrego Garcia, who was driving a vehicle with eight passengers who he said had been working on a construction job with him in Missouri.
Multiple officers responded and in the video, they allege that Abrego Garcia is transporting migrants from Texas to Washington, D.C. with one trooper suspicious that he was "hauling these people for money," because they did not have luggage in the vehicle.
Abrego Garcia was not arrested and no criminal charges resulted from the stop. He was allowed to drive on with only a warning about an expired driver’s license, according to a report about the stop released last month by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
This stop was never cited by ICE as a reason for Kilmar Abrego’s detainment and has no relevance to his unlawful deportation.
"The point is not the traffic stop — it’s that Mr. Abrego Garcia deserves his day in court. Bring him back to the United States," An attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement Friday, according to the Associated Press.
Ongoing Battle
White House: Trump admin will not return Kilmar Abrego Garcia
White House reiterates that Trump admin will not bring home mistakenly deported Maryland father from El Salvador
What's happening:
The Trump administration has been aggressively publicizing Abrego Garcia’s past interactions with law enforcement since rulings from both a federal court and the Supreme Court were handed down, ordering his return to the United States.
After the Supreme Court issued its April 10 decision saying that the Trump administration had to comply with a District Court order that Abrego Garcia must be brought back home, it was kicked back down to that same District Court. Judge Paula Xinis has since said the DOJ must provide evidence of its efforts to bring Abrego Garcia back and regular updates on his detention.
On April 17, an appeals court also told the Trump administration it must return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S. The Fourth Circuit Court scolded the Trump administration, saying the court is not going to "micromange" a clear directive to "facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia."
President Donald Trump and the President of El Salvador both said outright that Abrego Garcia would not be returned to the U.S. Many say Trump's refusal to comply with the court is an abuse of his executive power.
One Texas lawmaker, Rep. Joaquin Castro, has filed a resolution of inquiry into records related to deportations to El Salvador. It would compel the Trump administration to release records related to the deportation of individuals to El Salvador.
Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia?
Kilmar Abrego Garcia: Trump administration claims there's nothing they can do after mistakenly deporting man
International Law Professor Milena Sterio shares what to expect next in Kilmar Abrego Garcia's case.
The backstory:
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a 29-year-old Salvadoran national. He fled his home country and came to the U.S. when he was 16. He has since lived in Maryland. He has three children and a wife, Jennifer Vasquez.
On March 12, Abrego Garcia was arrested in Baltimore after working a shift as a sheet metal apprentice and picking up his 5-year-old son, who has autism and other disabilities, from his grandmother’s house, according to his lawyers.
He was then sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT which activists say is rife with abuses. Three days later, he was deported.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement say they removed him to a Salvadoran prison over a 2019 accusation that he was in the MS-13 gang. Authorities based the accusation on his tattoos, a Chicago Bulls hoodie and the word of a criminal informant.
Abrego Garcia's ties to MS-13 were never proven and he has repeatedly denied being a gang member. His lawyers argue that the U.S. government "has never produced an iota of evidence" that he is affiliated with MS-13 or any other street gang.
His eventual expulsion to El Salvador violated a U.S. immigration judge’s order in 2019 that shielded him from deportation to his native country. The judge ruled that Abrego Garcia had credible fears of being killed if he returned to El Salvador.
Abrego-Garcia has no criminal record in the U.S. outside of a few traffic violations. He had regularly checked in with immigration authorities.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials later admitted in a court filing that his deportation was due to an "administrative error" but the Trump administration has since maintained that there is nothing they can do to bring him back.