There's been a recent explosion of news surrounding the background of deported El Salvadorian man and suspected MS-13 member Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, and a newly uncovered audio recording of his wife is only going to paint Democrats further into a corner.

As RedState reported on Thursday, body cam footage showed the once-illegal immigrant being pulled over by the Tennessee Highway Patrol while driving a convicted human smuggler's car. In the vehicle were eight other people, and Abrego-Garcia had $1400 cash on him, which was suspected to have been his payment. He was eventually released after Joe Biden's ICE never showed up to detain him on what would have presumably been federal charges.

That bit of Abrego-Garcia's history came after prior revelations that his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, had filed multiple restraining orders against him for domestic violence. But while she glossed over those when asked, neither denying nor confirming the abuse, audio shows she directly accused him of repeated acts of domestic violence, including slapping and hitting. A fair warning, it's a disturbing listen.

"He slapped me three times." Audio depicts Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, pleading with a judge for temporary protection from her husband in 2020. pic.twitter.com/GnnxRjjcaQ

— USA TODAY Video (@usatodayvideo) May 2, 2025

VASQUEZ SURA: I came to fill out a protective order. I think it was in December, but I didn't show up to the court because his family, like, washed my brain telling me that his dad was sick and not to do it. So I didn't do anything, but after that, it was, like, I would call the police, I have a lot of police reports, and I kept trying to get to the door basement to try to open the door, and then, like, he pushed me so then when I was able to get outside to get a phone, I called 911 from a disconnected phone. 

Now, they took a long time to get to the House. It was probably like 20 or 30 minutes. So I saw a neighbor walking his dog, and I opened the door, and I was like, "Help." And then, when he heard me, like, he grabbed me by my hair and then he slapped me, and then the neighbor, like, he didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to react. I have pictures of the evidence, like all the bruises, because even on Wednesday, he hit me right around 3:00 in the morning. He would just wake up and, like, hit me. And last Saturday, for my daughter's birthday party, before I went to my daughter's birthday party, he slapped me three times, and last week I did call the police, my sister called the police because he hit me in front of my sister.

That's honestly hard to listen to, and it paints a picture of a violent man who never should have been allowed to stay in the United States in the first place. The probable gang affiliation was bad enough, as was the alleged human smuggling, but beating your wife is another level of depravity. That she's now standing by him only makes this situation more disturbing, and it reeks of Stockholm syndrome.

Before anyone criticizes her, though, consider the spot she's been put in. Given that Democrats have chosen to make Abrego-Garcia a symbol of their resistance, can anyone blame her for going along with the narrative, given all she's been through? Imagine how she'd be treated if she came out and spoke plainly about her husband? So while I think it'd be safer and healthier for Vasquez Sura to face what happened to her head-on, I tend to give deference to anyone who has gone through something so traumatic. 

Returning to the politics of this, they have become completely toxic for Democrats. They rushed to elevate Abrego-Garcia as their preeminent issue without even considering that he was the bad guy that the Trump administration claimed. You had senators and congressional members actually fly to El Salvador to demand his release while continually describing him as just a "Maryland father." 

I'm not even giving a commentary on "due process" or whatever arguments may exist about how this deportation happened. I'm recognizing that Democrats could have picked a far better example if this was the road they wanted to go down. Instead, they latched onto an alleged gang member and domestic abuser, and now, they are stuck with him. There's no pivot where they can get away from these optics. 

With that said, the optics are secondary to the violence committed against Vazquez Sura. I sincerely hope she gets the help she needs and that she's not glossing over the abuse she suffered because of political pressure. 

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