Abrego Garcia's wife sought protective order from him in 2021

Racquel Bazos, Baltimore Sun on Apr 16, 2025

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The Department of Homeland Security posted purported court records Wednesday of a 2021 protective order against the Maryland man mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison by the Trump administration.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia‘s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, has vocally supported her husband and the legal efforts to bring him home to their 5-year-old son and two stepchildren. But documents posted by DHS show that she once sought a temporary restraining order against him for alleged domestic violence.

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia had a history of violence and was not the upstanding ‘Maryland Man’ the media has portrayed him as,” DHS wrote in a Wednesday post on X that included images of court documents.

The documents posted by DHS are dated May 6, 2021, and include allegations that Abrego Garcia “punched and scratched,” as well as “ripped off shirt, grabbed and bruised” Vasquez Sura, who is referred to as only Vasquez on the documents.

“This MS-13 gang member is not a sympathetic figure,” DHS said in the post online.

Though the government has referred to him as a gang member, court records state that Abrego Garcia has not been convicted of any related crimes in either the United States or El Salvador, according to previous Sun reporting.

Vasquez Sura said she “acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar” when she got the civil protective order, according to a statement emailed to The Baltimore Sun on Wednesday from Ama Frimpong, legal director of CASA, an advocacy group that has supported Vasquez Sura as she seeks her husband’s return.

A survivor of domestic abuse in a previous relationship, Vasquez Sura said she decided not to follow through with the civil court process because “things did not escalate” with Abrego Garcia.

“We were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling. Our marriage only grew stronger in the years that followed. No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect. That is not a justification for ICE’s action of abducting him and deporting him to a country where he was supposed to be protected from deportation,” she wrote.

Maryland court records show a case with a matching case number, but no documents are available online.

“The legal team and the family have not independently verified the authenticity of the documents posted by DHS on X,” Frimpong said in response to an inquiry from The Sun.

The Prince George’s County State’s Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request to confirm the authenticity of the records posted by DHS.

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

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(Sun Baltimore Sun reporters Jeff Barker and Dan Belson contributed to this article.)

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