Jennifer Vasquez Sura never thought she’d see her husband’s face in a viral image of an overcrowded prison—let alone one from a jail in El Salvador.
But that’s exactly what happened when the Maryland mother was watching a news segment and suddenly spotted her husband, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, behind bars in the notorious CECOT prison—one of the largest and most dangerous detention centers in the world.
Her voice still shakes as she talks about it.
“They took my husband over a clerical error,” Vasquez Sura told CBS Mornings. “He was just gone—and I found out through a photo.”
The couple shares a 5-year-old child with disabilities. They were living a quiet life in Maryland—working, raising their child, and trying to stay out of trouble.
But in March 2024, Vasquez Sura’s world turned upside down when her husband was suddenly deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), despite having protected immigration status.
Now, she’s speaking out—and suing.
The lawsuit names Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, and others in connection with the wrongful deportation of her husband.
The legal action claims that Abrego Garcia was swept up in a mass deportation effort originally ordered by President Donald Trump, targeting alleged gang members.
Yet Garcia, who fled El Salvador in 2011 to escape the very gangs he’s now accused of being part of, had already gone through the legal system—and won.
“He had his day in court,” Vasquez Sura said. “They said he wasn’t a threat. He had status. How can they just undo that with a mistake?”
Garcia had been wrongly accused of MS-13 affiliation while trying to find work years ago. After a full hearing, those claims were dismissed, and he was granted status protecting him from deportation. But that protection was ignored.
According to CBS, the White House has acknowledged that a clerical error occurred—but at the same time, officials have doubled down on claiming Garcia was a criminal. No evidence of any criminal record has been produced.
With Garcia now out of the country and locked up in one of the world’s harshest jails, Vasquez Sura has been left devastated, trying to care for their child alone, and fighting a system that no longer has jurisdiction over her husband.
“How do you just fix a mistake like this?” she asks. “You can’t bring him back. You can’t undo the trauma. My child asks for him every night.”
The legal battle may take months or years to resolve. But for Vasquez Sura, the pain is immediate—and personal. She’s calling for accountability and demanding answers—not just for her family, but for any other immigrant families that may have quietly been torn apart by bureaucratic errors.
“This wasn’t just a mistake,” she says. “It was a life.”
