Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the alleged MS-13 member who was deported to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT megaprison last month, told ICE officers he didn’t fear returning to Central America before being loaded onto a one-way flight to his home country, sources tell The Post.
Abrego’s Garcia’s admission undercuts a statement he gave to the feds in 2019 expressing that he did in fact fear returning to El Salvador due to the threat of gang violence.
In March of that year, ICE took Abrego Garcia into custody after local cops found him socializing with confirmed MS-13 soldiers in a Maryland Home Depot parking lot and he was found to be in the US illegally, according to documents released by the Department of Justice Wednesday.
A “past proven and reliable source” told a Hyattsville City Police Department detective that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13’s Western clique who carried the rank of “Chequeo” and the moniker “Chele,” according to a gang field interview sheet.
Cops also noted Abrego Garcia was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie with rolls of money covering the eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents on the different denominations, which is “indicative of the Hispanic gang culture.”
“Wearing the Chicago Bulls hat represents that they are a member in good standing with the MS-13,” the police report read.
However, an immigration judge blocked the feds’ ability to deport Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in October 2019, accepting the Salvadoran’s claim he was at risk of retaliation from gangs like Barrio 18, MS-13’s chief rival.
Abrego Garcia was shipped off with 260 other reputed gang members March 15 under the 18th-century Alien Enemies Act, which President Trump invoked to deport them rapidly and without a hearing.
Attorneys for Abrego Garcia insist their client has no criminal record in the US that would justify his removal, while the government says his illegal crossing of the US-Mexico border in 2011 forfeits any right to stay in America.
Several federal courts — including the US Supreme Court — have demanded that the Trump administration take “all available steps to facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to America.
Justice Department lawyers have claimed they are fulfilling the terms of that order by removing all domestic obstacles for Abrego Garcia to be brought back — but they can’t force El Salvador to release one of its citizens.
It was also revealed Wednesday that Abrego Garcia was previously accused of physically abusing his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a US citizen who has been publicly advocating for his release.
Vasquez Sura applied for a protective order against her husband in 2021, saying he punched, scratched, grabbed and bruised her, according to court documents.
The woman told The Post Wednesday that she was “acting out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar … in case things escalated” after she survived domestic abuse “in a previous relationship.”
“Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process. We were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling,” she said.
“Our marriage only grew stronger in the years that followed. No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect.”
Vasquez Sura argued that her husband’s alleged abuse “is not justification for ICE’s actions of abducting him and deporting him to a country where he was supposed to be protected from deportation.”
“I will continue to stand by him and demand justice for him.”
