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The Shadow of ICE
America’s Expanding Immigration Enforcement and Surveillance Apparatus
In the quiet, leafy neighborhoods of suburban Maryland, Jennifer Vasquez Sura waits for her husband to return home. What began as a normal day in March 2025 spiraled into an international incident that would expose the fault lines in America’s immigration enforcement system, challenge the boundaries of executive power, and raise profound questions about America’s commitment to human rights and the rule of law.
The Man Who Disappeared
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national and Maryland resident, was mistakenly deported to El Salvador on March 15, 2025, under the Trump administration’s intensified immigration enforcement. Despite having legal protection from deportation since 2019 due to credible threats from gangs in his home country, Abrego Garcia was arrested and sent to El Salvador’s maximum-security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
“When the government makes a mistake in most contexts, it can usually be remedied,” notes immigration attorney Karen Tumlin, founder of the Justice Action Center. “But when someone is wrongfully deported to a country where their life is in danger, that error can become irreversible — and fatal.”
