Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, originally from El Salvador, was one of the 261 Salvadoran and Venezuelan immigrants deported by the Trump regime on March 15, on three planes to El Salvador. This was an outrageously unlawful move, based solely on the regime’s claim that the deportees were members of criminal gangs. In El Salvador, the deportees were thrown into the notorious maximum security prison—in fact, a torture camp—known as CECOT, where prisoners are severely overcrowded, forced to sleep on metal bunks without mattresses, regularly beaten, and sent to solitary confinement, often in pitch dark, for any alleged misbehavior. And the Trump regime continued with those deportation flights in defiance of a federal judge’s order that the planes immediately return to the U.S. with the immigrants.

In the case of Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, there was an additional outrage. At age 16, he had left El Salvador and come to the U.S. to escape violent threats from a local gang—and in 2019, had won an immigration court ruling that barred the government from deporting him, because of credible fears for his life if forced back to El Salvador. When this came to light, Trump officials admitted that Ábrego García’s deportation was an “administrative error”—but claimed there was nothing they could do to correct the mistake because he was now in the hands of the Salvadoran government! And in any case, they claimed, he was a member of the MS-13 gang so deserved to be thrown out of the U.S.

These officials now running the American government are cruel, heartless monsters… and they are fascists, blatantly disregarding rights and rule of law and demanding that whatever they say must be what dictates everything.

Confrontation in the Courts 

On Friday, April 4, in an important court decision, a federal judge in Maryland (where Kilmar and his family live) ruled that the deportation of Ábrego García was an “illegal act” and that the Trump administration must bring him back to the U.S. by Monday midnight. The Trump regime asked an appeals court to step in and put a stop to the judge’s order.

The Ábrego García case, along with others where judges have ruled against various moves by Trump, sets up a confrontation with potentially far-reaching consequences. So far, Trump has not openly declared that he is defying court rulings—although he effectively has in various instances, like in ignoring the order to turn back the March 15 deportation flights to El Salvador. Whether Trump is forced to accept court rulings against him, at least for now, or chooses to openly defy the courts, what happens with these legal showdowns will be a major development in the regime’s drive to consolidate fascist rule, with unpredictable consequences.

In the April 4 hearing in the Ábrego García case, the judge, Paula Xinis, shot down the Trump regime’s lying claim of having no power to bring him back from El Salvador. If Trump officials have “functional control” over sending deportees to CECOT, she said, “they certainly have the functional control of the return.” Indeed, the Trump regime has given El Salvador’s fascist president Nayib Bukele millions of dollars for keeping deportees from the U.S. at the CECOT dungeon. And Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem released a video of a tour she took of CECOT on March 26, in which she stood before a cell packed with prisoners and warned that if you are undocumented in the U.S., “this is one of the consequences you could face.”

As for the Trump regime’s claim that Ábrego García was a Salvadoran gang member and that justified his deportation, Xinis rightly pointed out, “I haven’t been given any evidence. In a court of law, when someone is accused of membership in such a violent and predatory organization, it comes in the form of an indictment, a complaint, a criminal proceeding that has robust process so we can assess the facts.” Kilmar’s lawyers and family have pointed out that he has no criminal record, in the U.S. or El Salvador, and that allegations of his MS-13 membership are without any factual basis.

The Trump White House’s contemptuous response, through the press secretary, was to tell the judge that she should “contact” Salvadoran President Bukele, “because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador.” 

Clearly, it’s not that Trump and his gang can’t bring Kilmar Armando Ábrego García back to the U.S. to his home and family, but they are making a deliberate point that they won’t. And they’re aiming to threaten many others, saying, in effect: “We have the power to snatch you and disappear you—whenever, and whatever your legal status or whether you have any criminal record—and throw you into hellhole prisons and worse.”

Lives Devastated by the Fascist Juggernaut—and the Need to STOP This

Kilmar Armando Ábrego García’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, is a U.S. citizen, as are their five-year-old son and Kilmar’s two stepchildren. Jennifer did not know where Kilmar had disappeared to until she saw a photo of the immigrants deported to El Salvador on March 15 and recognized her husband among them. Neither she, nor Kilmar’s lawyers in the U.S. and El Salvador, have been in contact with him.

Jennifer said of Kilmar: “He has always been there for our three children and all of their needs. Two of them are on the autism spectrum, and our third has epilepsy. He has been the main provider of our household and the love of my life for over seven years. Since our family has been separated, I have been devastated and confused. I lost my life partner, my children lost their father, and all of our family, neighbors, co-workers, and friends have been devastated due to this unjust family separation.”

This is a horrific story that is being multiplied hundreds and thousands of times right now by what the Trump regime is doing—this fascist juggernaut must be STOPPED and DEFEATED before it becomes hundreds of thousands and even millions. The court battles against Trump are important. But they are not going to defeat the Trump fascist regime on their own. 

Revolutionary leader Bob Avakian, in his social media message REVOLUTION #112 @Bob Avakian Official (“Trump’s fascist rule, like Hitler’s before him, is a regime of horrors—and is completely illegitimate.”), sharply pointed to what is needed, urgently:

Before Trump’s fascist rule can become fully consolidated and carry out even far worse horrors than what it is already perpetrating, it must be defeated through powerful mass mobilization—overcoming all “divide and conquer” schemes, uniting all who can be united, from many different viewpoints and perspectives, in actively opposing, defying and resisting this fascism, in continually growing numbers—moving to quickly involve millions, determined to create such a profound political crisis that Trump cannot govern the country and continue to implement his fascist program, with all its terrible consequences.