Booker and Fetterman join calls for Trump admin to return Maryland immigrant from El Salvador prison

Congressional Democrats are pressing President Donald Trump to facilitate the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man and El Salvador native who was mistakenly deported there last month.

Despite an order from the U.S. Supreme Court that the Trump administration “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, the Department of Justice has argued the administration is not responsible for bringing him back to the United States.

Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Cory Booker of New Jersey are among those calling for action as concern grows surrounding Abrego Garcia’s treatment and the circumstances surrounding his wrongful deportation.

Booker, the No. 4 Senate Democrat, is organizing a trip to El Salvador, according to Politico. Several Republican lawmakers appear to have posted photos of themselves inside the prison, following the lead of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Here’s what we know.

Abrego Garcia, 29, lived in the United States for roughly 14 years, during which he worked in construction, got married, and was raising three children with disabilities, according to court records.

He grew up in San Salvador and worked for his family business, a pupuseria, alongside his parents and siblings. His father was a former police officer. Abrego Garcia’s job was to buy ingredients from the grocery store and make deliveries with his brother.

“Everyone in the town knew to get their pupusas from ‘Pupuseria Cecilia,’” his lawyers wrote in a court filing.

But a local gang, Barrio 18, began targeting Abrego Garcia and his siblings — threatening to kill or rape them and extorting them — compelling the family to eventually shut down the business and send some of the siblings to the United States.

The family never went to the authorities because of rampant police corruption, according to court filings. The gang continued to harass the family after they moved to Guatemala, which borders El Salvador.

Around 2011, at age 16, Abrego Garcia fled to the United States illegally, joining his brother, a citizen, in Maryland. He worked in construction and met his now-wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, who is also a citizen. They lived in Prince George’s County, just outside Washington, with her two children from a previous relationship.

In 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot store looking for work when he was arrested by county police, according to court filings. Detectives asked if he was a gang member. After saying he wasn’t, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him.

Abrego Garcia later told an immigration judge that he would seek asylum and asked to be released. Vasquez Sura was five months into a high-risk pregnancy.

But ICE said he was a certified gang member of MS-13’s New York chapter based on information from a confidential informant. Abrego Garcia’s attorneys denied the claims, saying Abrego Garcia never lived in New York.

Still, the information was enough for an immigration judge to keep him in jail as his immigration case continued in 2019.

Abrego Garcia and Vasquez Sura were married in a Maryland detention center, court filings show. She gave birth while he was 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, and ICE did not appeal.

Abrego Garcia checked in with ICE yearly, while the Department of 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.

He and Vasquez Sura were raising three kids, including a 5-year-old son who has autism, is deaf in one ear, and is unable to verbally communicate, according to the complaint filed against the Trump administration. They are also raising a 9-year-old with autism and a 10-year-old with epilepsy.

Abrego Garcia was never charged with a crime and has denied allegations of gang involvement. His attorneys have pointed out that the informant claimed he was a member of MS-13 in Long Island, where he has never lived.

In February, the Trump administration designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization and sought to remove members “as expeditiously as possible.”

Abrego Garcia was pulled over March 12 outside an Ikea store in Baltimore with his son, according to court records. An agent called Vasquez Sura and said she had 10 minutes to retrieve their son or ICE would request child protective services.

Abrego Garcia called his wife from jail and said authorities pressed him about MS-13, according to court documents. They asked about a photo of him playing basketball on a public court, and his family’s visits to a restaurant serving Mexican and Salvadoran food.

“He would repeat the truth again and again — that he was not in a gang,” Vasquez Sura stated in court documents.

On March 15, Abrego Garcia was part of a reported “three planeloads” of Salvadoran and Venezuelan deportees. Bloomberg News estimated that 90% of them had no U.S. criminal record.

The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed lower-court rulings saying Abrego Garcia was wrongly deported and should be returned to the United States.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis has required daily status updates on what the Trump administration is doing to return Abrego Garcia.

Trump’s administration has doubled down on its stance that the government should not have to repatriate Abrego Garcia, despite the court rulings.

For weeks, officials have alternated between admitting Abrego Garcia was deported in error and arguing that the United States has no power in the matter because he is now in El Salvador.

On Monday, Trump’s top advisers and Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, said they had no basis for returning Abrego Garcia.

“The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” Bukele, seated alongside Trump, told reporters in the Oval Office. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”

The next day, Xinis admonished the Department of Justice and said there would be “no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding. ” She ordered expedited processing to be completed by April 23.

Democrats are sounding the alarm about how Abrego Garcia is being treated.

Many are pushing for his return and for the White House to comply with the Supreme Court’s directive.

In addition to Booker, other Democrats, including U.S. Reps. Maxwell Frost of Florida and Robert Garcia of California, are also planning trips.

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland arrived in El Salvador on Wednesday to push for Abrego Garcia’s release.

On social media, Fetterman said he was “calling on the White House” to follow the Supreme Court’s directive to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release.

This article contains information from the Associated Press.