Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s story begins in his native El Salvador, but it’s become increasingly unclear where it will end.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S. from a notorious prison, rejecting the White House’s claim that it couldn’t retrieve the Salvadoran national after mistakenly deporting him.

Trump administration officials have said they would comply in general with court orders while pushing back against the idea of bringing him back, arguing it was up to El Salvador. On his visit to the U.S. this week, El Salvador’s president said he lacked the power to return him, saying it would be “preposterous” to “smuggle a terrorist into the United States.”

The case prompted U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, the Democrat from Maryland, to fly to El Salvador this week, hoping to see and check on the condition of Abrego Garcia, who had lived in Beltsville. But on Wednesday El Salvador’s vice president denied Van Hollen a face-to-face visit with the Maryland man, saying he should have given the country more advance notice.

Van Hollen posted a video to Instagram before his flight, saying the goal of his trip was “to let the Trump administration, to let the government of El Salvador, know that we are going to keep fighting to bring Abrego Garcia home.”

Abrego Garcia is a 29-year-old father who lived in the U.S. for roughly 14 years, during which he worked construction jobs, got married and was raising three children with disabilities, according to court records.

Trump administration officials said the deportation was a result of an administrative mistake but also said Abrego Garcia was deported last month based on an accusation from local police in Maryland that he was an MS-13 gang member. Abrego Garcia denied the allegation and was never charged with a crime, his attorneys have said.

A U.S. immigration judge shielded Abrego Garcia in 2019 from deportation to El Salvador, concluding he likely faced persecution there by local gangs that had terrorized his family.

As his case continues in the U.S. courts, here is Abrego Garcia’s story so far.

Gang threats in El Salvador

Abrego Garcia grew up in El Salvador’s capital city, San Salvador, according to court documents filed in U.S. immigration court in 2019. His father was a former police officer. His mother, Cecilia, sold pupusas, the nation’s signature dish of flat tortilla pouches that hold steaming blends of cheese, beans or savory pork.

The entire family, including his parents, two sisters and older brother, ran the business from home, court records state. 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.

A local gang, Barrio 18, began extorting the family for “rent money” and threatened to kill his older brother, Cesar — or force him into the gang — if it wasn’t paid, court documents state. The family complied but eventually sent Cesar to the U.S.

Barrio 18 similarly targeted Abrego Garcia, according to his immigration case. When he was 12, the gang threatened to take him away until his father paid it “all of the money that they wanted.” It still watched him as he walked to and from school.

The family moved 10 minutes away, but the gang threatened to rape and kill Abrego Garcia’s sisters, court records state. The family shut down the business, moved again and eventually sent Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

The family never went to 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.

Life in the U.S.

Abrego Garcia fled to the U.S. illegally around 2011, the year he turned 16, according to documents filed in his immigration case. He joined Cesar, now a U.S. citizen, in Maryland and found work in construction.

For the past year, Abrego Garcia worked as an apprentice with the Sheet Metal Air Rail & Transportation Local 100 union. This month, the union described him as a devoted father. The president of the union expressed support for Abrego Garcia and demanded his “rightful return.”

About five years after he arrived in the U.S., Abrego Garcia met Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, the records say. In 2018, after she learned she was pregnant, he moved in with her and her two children. They lived in Beltsville in Prince George’s County.

“This continues to be an emotional roller coaster for my children, Kilmar’s mother, his brother and siblings — and all our immigrant community, union workers, allies, and the community at large who have been pouring into our family’s fight as if it were their own — because it is all of our fights," Vasquez Sura said this month. “I am anxiously waiting for Kilmar to be here in my arms, and in our home putting our children to bed, knowing this nightmare is almost at its end.”

A visit this month to Abrego Garcia’s Beltsville community found quiet blocks of largely single-family homes, lined with pink blossoming trees canopied over parked trucks and SUVs on its streets.

Mexican flags fluttered over some homes, and a “Love is love” sign stuck out a front door. A child’s bicycle lay tilted on the grass in Abrego Garcia’s front yard, next to a small green scooter and a blue dinosaur toy.

Less than a mile from Abrego Garcia’s home are hair salons and barbershops with signs welcoming Spanish speakers. Another sign of the neighborhood’s large Spanish-speaking population is a Japanese restaurant that plays merengue. The neighborhood market, Mi Barrio, has been a staple for 14 years.

In 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a home improvement supply store looking for work when he was arrested by County Police, according to court filings. Detectives asked if he was a gang member. After explaining he wasn’t, he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration released additional documents related to the case against Abrego Garcia.

A group was observed loitering in the parking lot of the Home Depot, according to a Prince George’s County Police Department gang field interview sheet.

As a detective approached the group, two individuals reached into their waistbands and threw several unknown items under a parked vehicle, the report states. Two small plastic bottles containing marijuana were found on the scene, but it was unclear from the report who owned the drugs.

Two individuals were recognized as members of the MS-13 Sailors Clique, according to the police report.

One had “an extensive criminal history,” including multiple assaults, concealing a dangerous weapon and burglary, according to police. That individual had been found guilty of gang participation in Prince George’s County in December 2018, according to the police report.

The other man, who officers said had made contact with a “past proven and reliable source of information,” said he was an MS-13 gang member with the Sailors Clique and achieved the rank of “Chequeo,” with the moniker “Maniaco,” which translates to manic or maniac in English.

Another document related to the Abrego Garcia case revealed he had $1,178 in his possession at the time of his arrest.

The Department of Homeland Security also posted Wednesday on the social media site X that, “according to court filings, Garcia’s wife sought a domestic violence restraining order against him, claiming he punched, scratched, and ripped off her shirt.”

An online search of Maryland court records shows that the temporary restraining order released by Trump officials was issued in May 2021. It was dismissed a month later, records show.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura said in a statement to the Associated Press after the document’s release that the couple had worked things out “privately as a family, including by going to counseling.”

“After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar by seeking a civil protective order in case things escalated,” she stated. “Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process.”

She said the order does not justify his deportation.

“Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him and demand justice for him,” she said.

Attorneys representing Abrego Garcia and the family could not immediately be reached for comment about the allegations.

As part of his case related to his 2019 arrest, Abrego Garcia later told an immigration judge that he wanted asylum and asked to be released. Vasquez Sura was five months into a high-risk pregnancy.

ICE, however, alleged that he was a certified gang member, based on information that came from a confidential informant used by County Police, records state. According to Abrego Garcia’s attorneys in his current case, the criminal informant had alleged that Abrego Garcia belonged to an MS-13 chapter in New York, where his lawyers said he never lived.

The information was enough for an immigration judge in 2019 to keep Abrego Garcia in jail as his immigration case continued, court records state. The judge said the informant was proven and reliable and had verified his gang membership and rank.

Abrego Garcia later married Vasquez Sura in a Maryland detention center, according to court filings. 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 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 their 5-year-old son, who has autism, is deaf in one ear and unable to verbally communicate, according to the complaint filed against the Trump administration. They’re also raising a 9-year-old with autism and a 10-year-old with epilepsy.

Mistaken deportation

In February, the Trump administration designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization and sought to remove identified members “as expeditiously as possible,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in Monday’s brief to the Supreme Court.

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 they had 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.