U.S. Labor Unions Demand 'Brother' Kilmar Abrego Garcia's Return From El Salvador

Source: Huff Post

May 1, 2025, 05:40 PM EDT


American labor unions are calling on El Salvador to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S., calling his deportation by the Trump administration an “egregious violation of our brother’s rights.” Last month immigration officials wrongly sent Abrego Garcia, an apprentice sheet metal worker who lived in Maryland, to his native El Salvador, where he remains in prison. The Supreme Court has ordered the White House to help bring him back.

Administration officials have acknowledged he was deported due to an administrative error, but so far have tried to wash their hands of the matter. The president has pointed to a photoshopped picture as evidence Abrego Garcia was a member of the gang MS-13, something Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have repeatedly denied.

In a joint letter to the Salvadoran embassy Thursday, labor leaders urged the government to return Abrego Garcia to his family and ensure justice for “all other workers who have been detained or deported without appropriate legal procedures.” “As a labor movement, we categorically reject the vicious attacks on immigrant workers like Kilmar Abrego Garcia being carried out by the Trump administration,” they wrote. “These dangerous anti-worker, anti-union tactics have been weaponized as a tool to sow fear and division and to distract from the corporate takeover of our democratic and economic systems.”

The letter was signed by Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO labor federation; James Williams, Jr., president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, or IUPAT; Gwen Mills, president of the hospitality union Unite Here; and Michael Coleman, president of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, or SMART, which is Abrego Garcia’s union.

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kilmar-abrego-garcia-unions_n_6813d66fe4b0d6761e2c6bff