"We're not moving on, we're doubling down": The grassroots fight to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home

Members of immigrant advocacy group CASA in Maryland have been holding their breath for more than a month as they wait for updates from the government on the fate of a Salvadoran man the Trump administration wrongly deported.

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a father of three and member of the grassroots organization, was removed to El Salvador last month despite a 2019 court order protecting him from deportation to the Central American country because of the threat of gang violence. The Supreme Court last week largely upheld a lower-court ruling that mandated the Trump administration "facilitate" his return to the United States, but federal officials have since taken a hands-off approach to complying with it — if they've even complied at all. That resistance prompted U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., to travel to El Salvador earlier this week to advocate for Abrego Garcia's return, an effort that culminated in their successful meeting Thursday.

CASA's policy director, Cathryn Jackson, told Salon that the Trump administration's refusal to return Abrego Garcia — and efforts to malign his character in the interim — has rattled group members and the surrounding community.

"Of course, we're concerned. What we're seeing is that Trump's resistance — they're exposing the lengths they're willing to go to defy the law flat-out," she said. But the inaction from the administration hasn't shaken their faith, she added. "What I will say is that, in terms of outcome, we are staying vigilant. We're not moving on, we're doubling down. We have not lost faith in any way that he will be returned."

In the month since Abrego Garcia's arrest, CASA, which provides financial, legal, health and social services to more than 173,000 working-class members across the country, has made it a goal to elevate his family members' voices and push the government for accountability. They aimed to ensure his story doesn't slip through the cracks amid the barrage of enforcement actions flooding the system and the airwaves since President Donald Trump took office. In that sense, they've been successful.

The case has garnered international attention and marks one of the first times the Trump administration has admitted error since it initiated its crackdown earlier this year, an effort that has sparked a flurry of litigation as immigrants and their families challenge removals, legal status recissions, detentions and the administration's apparent disregard for preserving their due process rights. Still, CASA and the growing legion of supporters they've helped mobilize remain determined in advocating for Abrego Garcia's return and supporting his family through the battle.

"The community is rallying. Our community is angry. Our community is outraged. Our community is shocked, but our community is resilient," CASA Legal Director Ama Frimpong told Salon in a phone interview, highlighting the strength and courage of Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, in leading the charge.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Abrego Garcia on March 12 as the sheet metal union apprentice returned home from a shift at a construction site. On March 15, the 29-year-old was erroneously included on a deportation flight to his native El Salvador for detention in its Terrorism Confinement Center, also known as CECOT, due to an admitted "administrative error." The mega prison, intended to hold Salvadoran gang members, is notoriously opaque, and human rights advocates previously told Salon they fear its prisoners face torture and other abuses, as has been documented in other Salvadoran facilities. Abrego Garcia said that he had recently been moved to a different detention center with better conditions, Van Hollen told media Friday.

The Trump administration accuses Abrego Garcia of being a ranking member of the MS-13 gang, but — as judges have noted in court filings — has not provided substantive evidence of such affiliation in court. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia and his family also deny that he has ties to any gang, and he has never been charged with a crime in the U.S., El Salvador or elsewhere.

Frimpong said the organization has been working closely with Abrego Garcia's family, particularly Vasquez Sura, his mother and his brother, in boosting their efforts to get the word out about his case, supporting them in "whatever ways and manners" they seek. A CASA advocate is serving as co-counsel for Vasquez Sura in the litigation and Frimpong said the organization has worked to ensure the family feels empowered to continue speaking out.

The group has also organized a number of actions to press for his release and return to the U.S., and support his family, including launching a petition, holding rallies and informational meetings, gathering donations and providing community members with resources to contact their lawmakers and the Trump administration on Abrego Garcia's behalf.

Jackson said that each public action in Maryland has seen hundreds of attendees, while the petition has garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures, with thousands also calling and writing elected officials at all levels of government. As Abrego Garcia's story gains more attention, she said, she's only seen that momentum grow.

"Every day, the movement is growing. Although folks are facing a lot right now, there is a drive to fight back," Jackson said, noting the "chilling effect" that the Trump administration's immigration policy has had on the community. "People are fired up. They're outraged. They understand the seriousness of what's happening. They are witnessing, firsthand, the harm."

She added that, in the face of the administration's attacks, the organization and members of the community are also fighting back "by telling the truth" and "reclaiming the story."

"They're sharing the stories that ICE tries to erase every single day," she said. "They're showing that immigrants are not numbers or cases. They're parents, they're students, they're essential workers, they're caregivers. They're people and dreams."

Earlier this week, the organization hosted a faith vigil where local clergy and leaders sang, prayed and called for Abrego Garcia's return. The group also facilitated an opportunity for Vasquez Sura to speak to the media ahead of a hearing in the case on Tuesday at the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

"As we continue through Holy Week, my heart aches for my husband, who should have been here leading our Easter prayers," she told the crowd outside the Maryland courthouse. "Instead, I find myself pleading with the Trump administration and the [Salvadoran President Nayib] Bukele administration to stop playing political games with the life of Kilmar."

CASA previously aided in coordinating a day on Capitol Hill for the family to meet with lawmakers and demand answers from the Trump administration, also hosting a press conference with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on April 9.

On April 4, the day of a key hearing in the case, the organization held dual actions in support of Abrego Garcia at the CASA headquarters and outside the courthouse, an effort joined by local clergy and his "brothers and sisters" of the SMART Union and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis would later order the Trump administration to "facilitate and effectuate" Abrego Garcia's return to the country by midnight on April 7, calling his removal from the U.S. "wholly lawless." The administration appealed the case up to the Supreme Court, which ruled last Thursday the administration must "'facilitate' Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador."

The court, however, did not affirm Xinis' ruling in full, writing that her call for the administration to "effectuate" Abrego Garcia's return may have overstepped her authority. The Trump administration has since used its interpretation of the Supreme Court's ruling to avoid bringing Abrego Garcia back, and on Thursday the Department of Justice filed a motion asking the district court to stay its order to "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's return.

Adam B. Cox, a professor of immigration law at New York University, told Salon that the Trump administration's read of the order — characterizing in court Tuesday their reluctance to address the judge's questions as a debate over what facilitate means in this context — is "false and misleading."

"The thing that the court unambiguously required the government to do — to facilitate — is Abrego Garcia's release from the prison, and the administration, as the judge noted [Tuesday], hasn't done anything to facilitate the release," Cox said in a phone interview. "It has pretended as though the Supreme Court's order said not that they had to facilitate his release from the prison, but instead that they only had to facilitate his re-entry into the United States."

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When reached for comment, the Department of Homeland Security directed Salon to an interview about the case between spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin and ABC News, in which the former repeatedly said she would defer to the Department of Justice on the issue and pushed unsupported claims that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13. She also acknowledged the clerical error that led to his mistaken deportation to El Salvador but maintained he should be in a Salvadoran jail or a U.S. detention center.

The Trump administration has also repeatedly argued it does not have the authority to bring Abrego Garcia back because he's now in Salvadoran custody, which judges have denied. In a meeting with Trump on Monday, President Bukele also said that he would not "smuggle" Abrego Garcia into the U.S. and asserted that he does not have the power to return him.

CASA, however, rejects those arguments. For the organization's leaders, the president's reluctance to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. is a power move to show the Trump administration believes itself to be above the law.

But, Frimpong added, the community-led efforts to bring Abrego Garcia back reflect its resilience against the attacks it's facing, his case presenting a "clear example of the harmful and dangerous ways" ICE operates under the Trump administration.

They're "really engaging in lawless, aggressive action to target Black and brown community members and treat us in a way that makes clear that they believe that we are disposable and not worthy of basic human and constitutional rights," Frimpong said.

She noted that Maryland has seen an "aggressive and indiscriminate" uptick in immigration enforcement since Trump took office as well as detainees subjected to "horrible conditions" in a Baltimore holding room. (In a statement to CBS News, ICE denied the claims, saying that it ensures the facility is compliant with federal law.)

"One thing that [Abrego Garcia's] wife has made clear is that this is not just about Kilmar. We want Kilmar home, but this is about all the Kilmars, right?" Frimpong said. "This is about everyone within our community who is being affected by the Trump administration's attack on the Constitution."