Brothers and Sisters,
No visitation. Indefinite detention. Forced labor.
These are the conditions in which our brother, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland union sheet metal worker and father, is being held.
Last month, federal agents mistakenly seized Abrego Garcia with no due process and transported him to a notorious El Salvador prison, where he is subject to heinous treatment and conditions.
Let me repeat that: Federal agents mistakenly seized Abrego Garcia. “Because of an administrative error,” according to the Trump Administration.
The Administration has acknowledged the mistake, yet it is brazenly defying a federal judge’s order that Abrego Garcia be returned to the United States so that his due process rights can be observed.
The Administration’s argument is that El Salvador has custody of Abrego Garcia, not the U.S., and so he cannot be returned.
This is a five-alarm fire. Our union brother MUST be returned.
Now is the time for us to take action to bring Abrego Garcia home. Click here to write to your member of Congress and demand that he be returned to the United States so that his due process rights can be observed.
Abrego Garcia is a first-year apprentice at the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) Local 100 who was working full-time to support his family.
He has no criminal record in the United States, where he has lived since he was 15, and his attorneys say that he was legally authorized to live and work here and that he was fully compliant with his responsibilities under the law.
If this can happen to Abrego Garcia, it can happen to any one of us.
The California Federation of Labor Unions, SMART, North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), and allied unions demand that he be returned to his family.
Please write to your congressional representatives and call on them to do the same.
