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Yomiuri Shimbun
a day ago
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Kilmar Abrego Garcia Is Back in the US, Charged with Human Smuggling as Attorneys Vow Ongoing Fight
Murray Osorio PLLC via AP/File This undated photo provided by Murray Osorio PLLC shows Kilmar Abrego Garcia. To hear the Trump administration tell it, Kilmar Abrego Garcia smuggled thousands of people across the country who were living in the U.S. illegally, including members of the violent MS-13 gang, long before his mistaken deportation to El Salvador. In allegations made public nearly three months after his removal, U.S. officials say Abrego Garcia abused the women he transported, while a co-conspirator alleged he participated in a gang-related killing in his native El Salvador. Abrego Garcia's wife and lawyers offer a much different story. They say the now 29-year-old had as a teenager fled local gangs that terrorized his family in El Salvador for a life in Maryland. He found work in construction, got married and was raising three children with disabilities before he was mistakenly deported in March. The fight became a political flashpoint in the administration's stepped-up immigration enforcement. Now it returns to the U.S. court system, where Abrego Garcia appeared Friday after being returned from El Salvador. He faces new charges related to a large human smuggling operation and is in federal custody in Tennessee. Speaking to NBC's Kristen Welken in a phone interview Saturday President Donald Trump said it was not his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back. 'The Department of Justice decided to do it that way, and that's fine,' he said. 'There are two ways you could have done it, and they decided to do it that way.' Trump said it should 'be a very easy case.' In announcing Abrego Garcia's return Attorney General Pam Bondi called him 'a smuggler of humans and children and women' in announcing the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. His lawyers say a jury won't believe the 'preposterous' allegations. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who visited Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, said his return to the U.S. was long overdue. 'As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it's about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all,' the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. 'The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.' 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, flat tortilla pouches that hold steaming blends of cheese, beans or pork. The entire family, including his two sisters and brother, ran the business from home, court records state. '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 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, court records state. When he was 12, the gang threatened to take him away until his father paid them. The family moved but the gang threatened to rape and kill Abrego Garcia's sisters, court records state. The family closed the business, moved again, and eventually sent Abrego Garcia to the U.S. The family never went to the authorities because of rampant police corruption, according to court filings. The gang continued to harass the family in Guatemala, which borders El Salvador. Life in the U.S. Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011, the year he turned 16, according to documents in his immigration case. He joined Cesar, now a U.S. citizen, in Maryland and found construction work. 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 March 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot seeking work as a laborer when he and three other men were detained by local police, court records say. They were suspected of being in MS-13 based on tattoos and clothing. A criminal informant told police that Abrego Garcia was in MS-13, court records state but Prince George's County Police did not charge the men. The department said this year it had no further interactions with Abrego Garcia or 'any new intelligence' on him. Abrego Garcia has denied being in MS-13. Although they did not charge him, local police turned Abrego Garcia over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He told a U.S. immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released because Vasquez Sura was pregnant, according to his immigration case. The Department of Homeland Security alleged Abrego Garcia was a gang member based on the county police's information, according to the case. The immigration judge kept Abrego Garcia in jail as his case continued, the records show. 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; ICE did not appeal. Abrego Garcia checked in with ICE yearly while Homeland Security issued him a work permit, his attorneys said in court filings. He joined a union and was employed full time as a sheet metal apprentice. In 2021, Vasquez Sura filed a temporary protection order against Abrego Garcia, stating he punched, scratched and ripped off her shirt during an argument. The case was dismissed weeks later, according to court records. Vasquez Sura said in a statement, after the document's release by the Trump administration, that the couple had worked things out 'privately as a family, including by going to counseling.' 'After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar,' she stated. She added that 'Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him.' A traffic stop in Tennessee In 2022, according to a report released by the Trump administration, Abrego Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol for speeding. The vehicle had eight other people and no luggage, prompting an officer to suspect him of human trafficking, the report stated. Abrego Garcia said he was driving them from Texas to Maryland for construction work, the report stated. No citations were issued. Abrego Garcia's wife said in a statement in April that he sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites, 'so it's entirely plausible he would have been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle. He was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing.' The Tennessee Highway Patrol released video body camera footage this May of the 2022 traffic stop. It shows a calm and friendly exchange between officers and Abrego Garcia as well as the officers discussing among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking before sending him on his way. One of the officers said: 'He's hauling these people for money.' Another said he had $1,400 in an envelope. An attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement after the release that he saw no evidence of a crime in the footage. Mistaken deportation and new charges Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March despite the U.S. immigration judge's order. For nearly three months, his attorneys have fought for his return in a federal court in Maryland. The Trump administration described the mistaken removal as 'an administrative error' but insisted he was in MS-13. His abrupt release from El Salvador closes one chapter and opens another in the months-long standoff. The charges he faces stem from the 2022 vehicle stop in Tennessee but the human smuggling indictment lays out a string of allegations that date back to 2016 but are only being disclosed now. A co-conspirator also alleged that Abrego Garcia participated in the killing of a gang member's mother in El Salvador, prosecutors wrote in papers urging the judge to keep him behind bars while he awaits trial. The indictment does not charge him in connection with that allegation. 'This is what American justice looks like,' Attorney General Pam Bondi said in announcing Abrego Garcia's return and the unsealing of a grand jury indictment. Speaking to NBC's Kristen Welker in a telephone interview President Donald Trump said it was not his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back. Abrego Garcia's attorney disagreed. 'There's no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy,' attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
Toronto Sun
2 days ago
- Politics
- Toronto Sun
U.S. charges Kilmar Abrego Garcia with transporting illegal immigrants into the country
Published Jun 06, 2025 • 2 minute read FILE - This undated photo provided by Murray Osorio PLLC shows Kilmar Abrego Garcia. (Murray Osorio PLLC via AP) AP WASHINGTON (AP) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose mistaken deportation to El Salvador became a political flashpoint in the Trump administration's stepped-up immigration enforcement, was being returned to the United States to face criminal charges related to what the Trump administration said was a massive human smuggling operation that brought immigrants into the country illegally. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account He is expected to be prosecuted in the U.S. and, if convicted, will be returned to his home country in El Salvador at the conclusion of the case, officials said Friday. 'This is what American justice looks like,' Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday in announcing the return of Abrego Garcia and the criminal charges. The charges stem from a 2022 vehicle stop in which the Tennessee Highway Patrol suspected him of human trafficking. A report released by the Department of Homeland Security in April states that none of the people in the vehicle had luggage, while they listed the same address as Abrego Garcia. Abrego Garcia was never charged with a crime, while the officers allowed him to drive on with only a warning about an expired driver's license, according to the DHS report. The report said he was travelling from Texas to Maryland, via Missouri, to bring in people to perform construction work. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In response to the report's release in April, Abrego Garcia's wife said in a statement that he sometimes transported groups of workers between job sites, 'so it's entirely plausible he would have been pulled over while driving with others in the vehicle. He was not charged with any crime or cited for any wrongdoing.' The Trump administration has been publicizing Abrego Garcia's interactions with police over the years, despite a lack of corresponding criminal charges, while it faces a federal court order and calls from some in Congress to return him to the U.S. Authorities in Tennessee released video of a 2022 traffic stop last month. The body-camera footage shows a calm and friendly exchange between officers with the Tennessee Highway Patrol. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Officers then discussed among themselves their suspicions of human trafficking because nine people were travelling without luggage. One of the officers said, 'He's hauling these people for money.' Another said he had $1,400 in an envelope. An attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement after the footage's release in May that he saw no evidence of a crime in the released footage. 'But the point is not the traffic stop — it's that Mr. Abrego Garcia deserves his day in court,' Sandoval-Moshenberg said. The move comes days after the Trump administration complied with a court order to return a Guatemalan ma n deported to Mexico despite his fears of being harmed there. The man, identified in court papers as O.C.G, was the first person known to have been returned to U.S. custody after deportation since the start of President Donald Trump's second term. Read More Olympics NHL Toronto & GTA Editorial Cartoons Ontario
Toronto Sun
01-05-2025
- Toronto Sun
Kilmar Abrego García's tattoos do not prove MS-13 membership, experts say
Published May 01, 2025 • 6 minute read This undated photo provided by Murray Osorio PLLC shows Kilmar Abrego Garcia. (Murray Osorio PLLC via AP) AP As the legal battle continues over the fate of Kilmar Abrego García, President Donald Trump has repeatedly cited tattoos on the mistakenly deported man's knuckles as proof that he is an MS-13 gang member and should not be returned from El Salvador. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account But several law enforcement officials and researchers who study the transnational gang say the tattoos on Abrego García's left hand – a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a cross and a skull – do not show definitive evidence of any gang affiliation. 'A tattoo alone, with nothing more, cannot be the single basis to opine someone is a gang member,' said John Colello, who oversees the homicide division for the district attorney's office in Los Angeles County, where MS-13 got its start during the 1980s. In an interview with ABC News on Tuesday night, Trump again adamantly insisted that Abrego García is a gang member while referencing a photo circulated by his administration on social media that labels the tattoos on his four fingers with: 'M – S – 1 – 3.' 'They looked, and on his knuckles he has 'MS-13,'' the president said in the interview. 'He had MS-13 on his knuckles, tattooed. … It says MS13. … Go look at his hand, he had MS13. … He had MS as clear as you can be.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. A White House spokesperson did not respond to specific questions Wednesday about how the Trump administration determined Abrego García's tattoos were evidence of gang activity. Law enforcement officials interviewed by The Washington Post said that some of the figures on Abrego García's hand have been seen on gang members before, particularly the marijuana leaf, though that symbol is also widely popular among those not affiliated with a gang. One official has seen some of those symbols in a similar configuration, but none have seen the exact same four symbols solely in that configuration spelling out 'MS-13.' Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of the lawyers representing the 29-year-old Abrego García, called the tattoos 'irrelevant.' Before Trump's social media posts, the government had never cited the tattoos as proof of gang affiliation, he said, and had never been found by any court to be a gang member. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'If the government believes they can use his tattoos to justify deporting him, then they should do what the law requires. Bring evidence to a judge and give Kilmar his day in court,' Sandoval-Moshenberg said in a statement. 'So far, that hasn't happened.' Steven Dudley, the co-founder and co-director of InSight Crime and author of the book 'MS-13: The Making of America's Most Notorious Gang,' said that the use of tattoos as displays of affinity and loyalty to the gang has dropped in recent decades after law enforcement officials seized on them to identify members. 'Younger members of the gang are far less likely to tattoo themselves, at least in any obvious manner,' Dudley said. Raymond Tierney, the top prosecutor in Suffolk County, New York – where the MS-13 clique Abrego García was accused of belonging to also allegedly operated – said he recalls explicit tattoos from the gang's members while prosecuting cases against them in the early 2010s. Gang leadership allowed and encouraged certain tattoos that were worn 'like a badge,' with certain acts qualifying members for certain tattoos, Tierney said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. But Tierney started to notice a shift in tattoos around 2018. 'The gang began to realize that law enforcement was using it as a means of identifying members,' he said. When President Nayib Bukele started his crackdown on MS-13 in El Salvador, 'the tattoos sort of evolved and became more clandestine,' Tierney said. Jeannette Aguilar, a psychologist and security researcher in El Salvador, said that a person's neighbourhood – and a gang's territorial control of that neighbourhood – remained a consistent factor in helping identify gang affiliation. The neighbourhood in El Salvador where Abrego García lived as a child was under the influence of the Barrio 18 gang, a sworn enemy of MS-13. Death threats from that gang after his mother – whose pupusa shop they attempted to extort – shielded him from being recruited into its ranks, prompted Abrego García's family to send him to the United States when he was 16, according to testimony his attorney provided in an immigration court proceeding. He entered the country illegally around 2011. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. It would be 'very improbable,' Aguilar said, that he would join a rival gang once he arrived in the United States. But Abrego García did get tattoos on his hands and arms, which he said was only because he liked how they looked, according to his attorney, Lucia Curiel, who provided The Post notes from a conversation she conducted with her client in 2019 about the tattoos. Abrego García told his attorney he got a star on his elbow, saying, 'I like the Cowboys.' A heartbeat near his wrist came in 2018, the product of a since-ended relationship with a girl who had a matching tattoo. The tattoo artist behind those pieces also filled in his left knuckles: a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a cross and a skull, he told Curiel. 'I got the skull because I like it,' he said, according to Curiel. Curiel said he never described the tattoos as gang-related, nor did he suggest they carried any deeper meaning. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In an interview with The Post, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, Abrego García's wife, put it simply: 'He thought tattoos were cool.' The tattoos did not factor at all in the gang affiliation allegation made by the Prince George's County gang unit detective who was summoned to a Home Depot parking lot to question Abrego García and three other Latino men in their 20s after they were detained by another police officer. Abrego García has said he was at the parking lot frequented by day labourers in search of work and did not really know the other men. Ivan Mendez, the Prince George's police detective who made the allegation, cited Abrego García's clothing, including a Chicago Bulls cap, and information from unnamed confidential informant in his allegation. He did not check a box in his 'Gang Interview Field Sheet' that was reserved for tattoos as proof of gang ties. Mendez was later charged with misconduct for providing information to a sex worker he had hired about an investigation into the brothel that she ran. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Of eight law enforcement officials or gang culture researchers interviewed by The Post, some said it could be plausible the symbols photographed on Abrego García's knuckle spell out MS-13. Leandro Paulino, a former corrections officer at Rikers Island in New York and founder of the International Law Enforcement Officers Association said that 'a tattoo alone cannot confirm gang affiliation. However, the specific positioning of the symbols and their meanings strongly suggest the MS-13 connection.' Aguilar, the Salvadoran researcher and psychologist, also pointed to the facility where Abrego García was transferred after he was initially taken to the high-security Terrorism Confinement Center, which is reserved for El Salvador's most hardened gang members. The 'semi-open' Santa Ana penitentiary center where Abrego García is currently being held is specifically designated for inmates who are not gang members, Aguilar said. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'The government is contradicting itself by sending him to a place where no gang member would be admitted,' she said. Dudley, who has conducted nearly two decades of research on MS-13, said he has never seen Abrego Garcia's knuckle tattoos 'as a representation of membership' in the gang. He said he has also never seen those symbols in different orders used to represent the letters or numbers of the gang. But he warned that any discussion about the tattoos and their significance was missing the broader picture on Abrego García's case, which is centered on his right to due process and the fact that the Trump administration has admitted that it mistakenly violated an immigration judge's 2019 order that he not be deported to El Salvador. 'At the end of the day, we have fallen into their trap: You cannot determine gang affiliation by tattoos alone, but this is what we are left debating,' Dudley said about the Trump administration. Gang affiliation does not cancel out the need for due process, he said, 'and we are not even talking about that.' Sunshine Girls Columnists Travel USA Editorial Cartoons Sunshine Girls
