Langley Park, MarylandCNN —
A Maryland mother recently received two calls: One was from her husband, who said he had been pulled over after finishing his construction shift. The other was from Homeland Security, telling her she had just 10 minutes to pick up the couple’s 5-year-old son who was in the car with her husband.
Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura raced to her husband’s side to hurriedly place their crying child in a car seat and say goodbye to her husband as he also wept.
“If you are strong, I will be strong,” were the last words he said to Vasquez Sura when he was handcuffed.
Now the shockwaves of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s March 12 arrest and subsequent deportation to El Salvador – which the Trump administration says was a mistake – have spread well beyond the family and are rattling the south-central Maryland community.
District Judge Paula Xinis ruled Friday that Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal worker, should be returned to the United States no later than 11:59 p.m. on Monday. The Trump administration has appealed the ruling, meaning the case will soon be heard by the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, according to a court filing.
Years prior to his arrest, Abrego Garcia had been deemed a gang member by the Prince George’s County Police Department in part because he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie, and on the word of an informant who said that he was an active member of the MS-13 gang – an allegation his attorneys continually denied, according to a recent court filing. But in 2019, an immigration judge granted him protected status, prohibiting the federal government from sending him to El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia, who attorneys say fled gang violence in El Salvador more than a decade ago, has been sent to CECOT, the country’s notorious mega prison. His son, who has autism, has been finding Abrego Garcia’s work shirts to smell his father’s familiar scent after his arrest, Vasquez Sura said in an affidavit.
“In a blink of an eye, our three children lost their father and I lost the love of my life,” Vasquez Sura said at a press conference in Maryland Friday.
Like many communities across the US, the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has sent a wave of fear through the Central American community in Maryland, whose members told CNN they have been unfairly targeted by the administration or labeled as gang members without evidence. Salvadoran community members, including those who hold green cards or visas, say they have felt unsafe since Abrego Garcia’s arrest as they could – at a moment’s notice – be deported to a country where they face life-threatening danger.
