Kilmar Abrego Garcia‘s, a Salvadoran national and suspected member of the violent MS-13 gang, wife is now blaming husband of domestic abuse, further fueling concerns over the consequences of lax immigration enforcement policies.
Recently deported, Abrego Garcia has become a flashpoint in the national immigration debate after a court audio recording surfaced detailing disturbing claims of abuse.
The audio, obtained by USA Today, features Jennifer Vasquez Sura pleading with a judge in an August 2020 hearing for a protective order against her husband. In her emotional testimony, Sura described repeated instances of alleged physical violence.
“On Wednesday, he hit me, like around, like, three in the morning,” Sura told the judge. “He would just wake up and hit me.”
She went on to describe a chilling incident in which she screamed for help while trying to escape her husband. “He grabbed me from my hair, and then he slapped me,” Sura said, noting that a nearby neighbor saw the event but was so shocked they didn’t intervene.
An audio recording obtained by USA today captures the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia pleading with a judge to issue a protective order against her abusive husband. pic.twitter.com/4zYU7kqftY
— Resist Times (@resistupdates) May 2, 2025
Sura further claimed she had attempted to obtain a restraining order as early as December 2019, but was pressured by Abrego Garcia’s family not to proceed due to the illness of his father. In a written filing obtained by Fox News, Sura expressed fear of being near Abrego Garcia, documenting bruises and other injuries in photos and videos she had collected.
Abrego Garcia has frequently been described in legacy media as a “Maryland man,” masking the fact that he was living in the U.S. illegally. Federal authorities believe he is affiliated with MS-13, a notoriously brutal gang responsible for murder, human trafficking, and extortion across the U.S.
In 2022, Abrego Garcia was stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. Bodycam footage later revealed that he was transporting eight individuals in a vehicle, prompting federal authorities to suspect him of involvement in human trafficking.
According to a Homeland Security Investigations report, Garcia admitted he was driving them from Texas to Maryland to work in construction—raising serious red flags about modern-day labor trafficking.
Despite this, the Biden-era courts, backed by the Supreme Court in April, upheld a lower court ruling forcing the Trump administration to arrange for Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.—a move many see as a failure to prioritize public safety and immigration law enforcement.
In a move that stunned many on both sides of the aisle, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) traveled to El Salvador last month and met personally with Abrego Garcia. The meeting drew bipartisan condemnation, especially as new details of the abuse allegations surfaced.
Patty Morin, whose daughter Rachel Morin was raped and murdered by another illegal immigrant, Salvadoran national Victor Martinez-Hernandez, expressed outrage over Van Hollen’s actions. “I’ve had no contact with Sen. Van Hollen since my daughter’s murder,” Morin said, highlighting a growing rift between elected officials and victims’ families seeking justice and accountability.
Rachel Morin’s killer was recently found guilty in a horrific August 2023 crime that shocked the community and underscored the deadly consequences of border insecurity.
The Trump administration has long maintained that Abrego Garcia is a threat to the public and should never have been in the country in the first place. Officials have pointed to extensive intelligence and gang-related evidence linking him to MS-13, and criticized the courts for prioritizing so-called due process for illegal immigrants over the safety of law-abiding American citizens.
“These are not isolated incidents,” a senior Trump official stated. “This is the direct result of weak border policies, activist judges, and a system that prioritizes criminals over victims.”