April 09, 2025

Rep. Juan Vargas, Members of Congress, and Family of Kilmar Abrego Garcia Join Together to Demand His Immediate Return to the United States

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Representative Juan Vargas (D-CA) and Congressional colleagues joined Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, and immigrant advocacy leaders to demand answers and accountability from the Trump Administration on the illegal deportation and disappearance of Abrego Garcia.

Abrego Garcia is a father and a union member who was living legally, under protected status, in Maryland with his family until he was deported with no due process by the Trump Administration to a prison in El Salvador where he remains. The Administration has admitted that Abrego Garcia’s deportation was the result of an “administrative error”.

A transcript of Rep. Vargas's remarks is available below:

Thank you very much. 

First, I want to thank the family for being here. 

I want to thank you, Jennifer, in particular. 

And I especially want to thank you for your tears. Because I think the American people got to see the hurt of so many families in America right now. 

Your tears are joined with the tears of many people in my district in San Diego, and they form a stream, and throughout this country, they form a river, a river of tears because of what’s happening to families. 

Now, supposedly the Administration is the ‘family values’ Administration, and yet they’re tearing these families apart. 

So, thank you for your courage to come up here and show the emotion that you feel towards your husband who's been disappeared. 

And I, too, never thought that this would happen in America. 

I spent time in El Salvador during the 80s as a Jesuit. I was there as a missionary. And they disappeared people there, too, and you never found them again. 

I never thought that something like that would happen in my own country, where masked people that work for the government would come and abduct people off the street. 

So again, I want to thank you for your courage. 

I also want you to know that we have two sheet metal workers right here in the union, they came to support you, they heard about your husband, and they’re here. Thank you. 

Thank you for being here. You’re not alone. We’re with you. 

###