As the Trump administration continues to assert its allegation that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, it has also made a concerted effort to call into question aspects of his personal life.
Under immense legal pressure to back its case against Abrego Garcia, the administration has argued that he is a gang member who did not have due process rights, even though it admitted to deporting him mistakenly to El Salvador despite a court order specifically barring his removal to the country for his safety. On top of that, Trump officials have targeted Abrego Garcia’s personal life, ridiculing the characterization of Abrego Garcia as a father and seeking to portray him as a violent individual at home.
On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security released a copy of a civil protective order granted to his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, in 2021.
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia had a history of violence and was not the upstanding ‘Maryland Man’ the media has portrayed him as,” the agency wrote in a post on X.
Vasquez Sura, who has been a fierce advocate for her husband’s return to the U.S., said in a statement that she sought the order after a disagreement with her husband “in case things escalated” and referenced her experience with domestic violence in a past relationship.
“Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process,” she said. “No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect. That is not a justification for ICE’s action of abducting him and deporting him to a country where he was supposed to be protected from deportation.”
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed media coverage of his case and seemed to question Abrego Garcia’s parenting. “Based on the sensationalism of many of the people in this room, you would think we deported a candidate for Father of the Year,” she said at a press briefing.
In early April, while defending Abrego Garcia’s removal, Vice President JD Vance similarly disparaged the media’s characterization of Abrego Garcia as a father.
“It is telling that the entire American media is going to run a propaganda operation today making you think an innocent ‘father of 3’ was apprehended by a gulag,” Vance posted on X. Abrego Garcia, who has legal status in the U.S., was arrested in March while driving home with his 5-year-old son in the back seat, and was then removed to El Salvador a few days later. He is also a stepfather to Vasquez Sura’s two children. Abrego Garcia is currently being detained at a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador, and the Trump administration is fighting court orders to facilitate his return to the U.S. as it continues to insist that he is a member of MS-13. Abrego Garcia’s family and his attorneys have denied that he is connected to any gang. On Wednesday, the Justice Department released documents that include new details in its case against Abrego Garcia, including records of a 2019 arrest and Maryland police officers’ assessments of his alleged ties to the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia has denied that he is affiliated with any gang, and his lawyers claimed that the police assessment “is based on hearsay relayed by a confidential source.” He has not been charged or convicted of any crime in the U.S.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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