Call for Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s Release at El Salvador Embassy

WASHINGTON (05-08) – A protest in support of the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia who was detained by ICE agents on March 12 of this year took place at the Embassy of El Salvador as part of an ongoing nationwide effort calling President Nayib Bukele to immediately release the illegally detained Garcia.

In pouring rain, the committed activists held signs, chanted in English and Spanish and were serenaded with inspiring songs from the activist Rapid Response Choir whose motto is “Protecting our community through song.” The group proclaims that “If this administration comes to harm you, we’ll be there.”

John Cavanaugh, senior advisor at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), speaking to those picketing outside the building housing the embassy said that the last good government in El Salvador in 2017 banned mining to save its rivers and “respected the rule of law” in contrast to the present situation in the country.

“There were good governments in El Salvador before Bukele, and there will be good governments after Bukele. I want to make a point about Kilmar and tens of thousands of other Kilmars with whom we stand here in solidarity.” Those thousands of others swept up by Bukele and imprisoned that Cavanaugh personally witnessed were housed in what he describes as “inhumane conditions, where close to 400 have died along with the absolute stripping of their rights, with judges in Bukele’s pocket and the complete disregard of the rule of law.”

“They are the same prisons that now the United States is paying El Salvador to disappear Venezuelan and Salvadorans.” He promised that activists will not stop protesting until Kilmar and the others denied their due process are freed.

Following his comments, an unnamed speaker told of recent ICE raids at DC area restaurants to round up undocumented workers that have left people “scared and not wanting to go to work right now because of what happened to Kilmar can happen to any of them.”

Abrego Garcia’s journey began when his family, to protect him from being forced to join the notorious Barrio 18 gang, sent him to the US, as they had done earlier for his older brother.

The twenty-nine-year-old Maryland resident, married to an American citizen, has no criminal record and has not been charged with any crime. While on his way after work to pick up his son on March 12, he was taken into custody by ICE agents in Baltimore and three days later on March 15 was deported for allegedly being a member of the MS13 criminal gang having been denied his right of due process.

Once in El Salvador, along with 260 others, he was transferred to the notorious CECOT (Terrorism Confinement Center) where the US taxpayers will pay $6 million a year for their confinement in a contract which can be renewable annually.

At the time of his arrested by ICE, Garcia’s legal status was “withholding of removal” which was granted to him by an immigration judge in October 2019 with the intent that “no person may be deported to a country where they will face persecution.” In Garcia’s case the intent was to keep him from being forced to join a gang should he be returned to El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia became insnared in a roundup of criminal gang members by ICE with no regard for his immigration status. His detention was at first claimed to be an “administrative error” and later that a “confidential tip” identified him as a member of the MS-13 gang. One protester carried a poignant sign noting that “A person is not an administrative error.”

The case soon became an immigration lightning rod when on April 10, 2025, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Abrego Garcia’s removal to El Salvador was illegal and required the US to “facilitate” his release. Since that time, the Trump administration has defiantly resisted the court’s order by stalemating his release, with Trump proclaiming that he did not “have the power to return him to the United States.” Salvadoran President Bukele for his part has rebuffed calls to release him.

Garcia’s congressman, Chris Van Hollen, in April traveled to El Salvador to meet with Gracia in person. After initially being told that it wasn’t possible, he was able to do so. A video and photos of their meeting with two staged Margarita glasses placed in front of them, one partially empty to appear as though they had been drinking, was widely broadcast and posted by Bukele who refers to himself as the “world’s coolest dictator.” The transparent ruse was debunked later as staged props by Van Hollen during a press conference.

A newly proposed Trump administration plan to deport some undocumented immigrants to Libya was blocked on May 8 by US District Judge Brian Murphy who issued an injunction on the grounds that it would violate the “right to challenge their [deportees] being deported to other than their homelands.”

Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

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