José Guillermo García

José Guillermo García (born 1933) is former general of the military of El Salvador and was minister of defense during the Revolutionary Government Junta of El Salvador. He emigrated to the United States in 1989. He was sued, along with Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, in the United States district court in West Palm Beach^[1] in two precedent-setting legal actions:

• Ford v. Garcia, a lawsuit by the families of four Maryknoll Sisters of St. Dominic, who were murdered by a Salvadoran military death squad on December 2, 1980. Garcia's defense won the case, and the families appealed. Their appeal was denied, and in 2003, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear further proceedings.
• Ramagoza v. Garcia, a lawsuit filed by the Center for Justice and Accountability on behalf survivors of torture during the Salvadoran Civil War. Garcia lost, and a judgment of over $54 million (U.S.) was entered against him and his co-defendant, and upheld on appeal.^[2][3]

General Garcia is currently in deportation proceedings in the immigration court before Judge Horn in Miami Florida. The Department of Homeland Security has charged him with participating or assisting in torture and extrajudicial killings during his tenure as Minister of Defense. His attorney Alina Cruz argues that he cannot be deported on those grounds because he was already exonerated of those charges in the landmark case Ford vs. Garcia when a jury found that he was not in control of his troops. In Romagoza v. Garcia, General Garcia was found culpable for monetary damages only when the jury was instructed that the only showing required were that the perpetrators were members of the armed forces. On April 12, 2014, an immigration court judge ruled against Garcia and called for his deportation.^[4] This decision is awaiting appeal.

References

See also

• Maura Clarke
• Jean Donovan
• Ita Ford
• Dorothy Kazel
• Salvadoran Civil War