Kilmar Abrego Garcia was accused of being a gang member in 2018 court papers, The Post can reveal — as the fight continues over whether the deported illegal immigrant dad was a part of MS-13.
Abrego Garcia’s wife’s ex made the claim when he filed documents seeking an emergency court hearing on the custody of the couple’s two children.
“She is dating a gang member,” Jennifer Vasquez Sura’s ex, Edwin Trejo Ramos alleged in the petition filed in Prince George’s County Circuit Court in Maryland.
Ramos, who is currently incarcerated in Maryland, went on to claim that he feared for his children’s lives, alleging that Sura had tried to kill herself and had left the kids with an 11-year-old babysitter, the August 2018 documents said.
The petition, first obtained by Fox 45 News, does not identify the gang member by name, and a judge denied the emergency hearing the following month, and later dismissed the petition in early 2019 over over jurisdictional issues.
Abrego Garcia and Sura — a US citizen — met in 2016, according to NBC News. The couple moved in together in 2018, and in June 2019, they got married while Abrego Garcia was being held in an immigration center, standing on opposite sides of a security glass wall. Sura gave birth to their son a few months later.
The timeline of Abrego Garcia and Sura’s relationship suggests the claim in the petition referred to Abrego Garcia.
Both Abrego Garcia and his family have asserted he is not a member of the notorious gang,
The assertion is the latest piece of evidence to surface alleging links between the 29-year-old Salvadoran national to the vicious MS-13 gang.
The Justice Department previously highlighted a March 2019 police report in which a confidential informant told the Prince George’s County Police Department gang unit that Abrego Garcia was part of the gang.
At the time, Abrego Garcia was arrested for loitering in a Home Depot parking lot in Hyattsville, Maryland with three other men. A detective with the gang unit noted in their report that Abrego Garcia was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie at the time of his arrest, which he said “represents [that] they are a member in good standing with MS-13.”
The officers said they also contacted a proven reliable source who confirmed Abrego Garcia was an “active member” of the gang with the Western clique, holding the rank of “Chequeo” and going by the street name “Chele,” according to the police report.
Two of the other men arrested with Abrego Garcia were also identified as having ties to MS-13, the report states.
Abrego Garcia was not charged at the time. However, last month he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported to his native El Salvador along with 260 other suspected gang members — despite an immigration judge granting him protection from deportation.
He was temporarily placed in the hellish Salvadorian megaprison CECOT before being moved to a lower-security facility earlier this month.
A Justice Department lawyer, Erez Reuveni, who has since been fired by AG Pam Bondi’s office, admitted his deportation was due to an “administrative error.”
In spite of the admission, the Trump administration has vehemently stuck to its guns, saying Abrego Garcia, who had lived in the US for 13 years, had no right to be in the US, citing the Maryland gang unit’s report.
A Maryland federal judge has ordered the administration to “take all available steps to facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the US, a ruling upheld by an appeals court and later the US Supreme Court in a unanimous decision.
“The [lower court] order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” read the high court’s opinion.
“For its part, the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”
The Trump administration has contended that it “cannot guarantee success in sensitive international negotiations” over Abrego Garcia’s release from foreign custody.
“The United States does not control the sovereign nation of El Salvador, nor can it compel El Salvador to follow a federal judge’s bidding,” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in the administration’s Supreme Court petition earlier this week.
Since Abrego Garcia’s arrest, pro-immigrant campaigners including elected officials, have championed his cause — among them Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who met with Abrego Garcia during a three-day trip to El Salvador.
“He said he felt very said about being in a prison because he had not committed any crimes,” the senator said. “When I asked him what was the one thing he would ask for in addition to his freedom, he said he wanted to talk to his wife, Jennifer.”
Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, leveled criticism at his Democratic colleagues in light of the new findings in a statement to The Post.
“While Democrats are flying to El Salvador to demand the return of an illegal immigrant with MS-13 gang ties, more information is coming out about his involvement in the gang. This is not a citizen of the United States, Abrego Garcia came here illegally, he never gained citizenship status here, so he’s back where he belongs.”
A representative for Vasquez Sura didn’t respond to a request for comment.
