April 21st, 2025: President's Message
There’s an empty chair at a table.
Someone missing at Easter dinner.
In this case it’s a father, a husband, a worker.
His name is Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
And he is your union brother.
Kilmar is one of thousands of workers who have been illegally seized, shackled, and shipped overseas since the change in Washington in January. Read that again – here in the United States, you can be abducted, imprisoned, and deported without so much as a hearing or a lawyer.
Why is this a union issue? Because unions fight for justice.
Kilmar is also a union member, an apprentice with SMART (Sheet Metal, Air, Rail Transportation) in Maryland. That is why his union president, Michael Coleman, has added his voice to millions of Americans demanding that Kilmar be sent back home to be with his family and to be given the due process we are all afforded by the law.
And if you’ve heard the President, or the Attorney General, or your friend at work calling Kilmar a criminal or a gang member, tell them to have the courage to stand up in court and present their evidence. Otherwise, they are smearing our union brother, and we won’t have it. It might be Kilmar today, but none of us will be safe if we allow this to continue.
If you think this is a faraway issue, take a look at this report of abductions occurring right here in Central New York.
That’s why I ask you to join with us and your union family across this country to demand respect for the law. However he came to this country, however your ancestors arrived here, we all deserve to be free from unjust persecution.
We demand that our brother Kilmar be reunited with his family, be brought back to the United States, and be given the due process that defines America.
I left an empty chair at my table this Easter for Kilmar and too many others who have been torn from their families and communities. Whatever tradition you embrace, I invite you to do the same each and every day until he is returned. Until America returns to behaving as the country she claims to be.