Minister of Justice and Public Security Héctor Villatoro, right, accompanies Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center, during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

GREENBELT, MARYLAND — A federal judge Friday demanded daily reports from the Trump administration on how it is working to return an erroneously deported Maryland man from an El Salvador prison, despite objections from a Department of Justice lawyer who insisted the Trump administration could not immediately obey a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

The Maryland judge’s order came after the high court Thursday night ruled the Trump administration must try to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, but stopped short of requiring he be brought back from the notorious mega-prison.

The unsigned order from the Supreme Court said the district court also needs to clarify what it meant by saying the administration must “effectuate” the return of Abrego Garcia and the scope of that term is “unclear” and may exceed the district court’s authority.

Immigration officials admitted to an “administrative error” in the March 15 deportation of Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, despite protections from removal to his home country placed in 2019 by an immigration judge.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of the District of Maryland grilled DOJ attorney Drew Ensign on where Abrego Garcia was currently and what steps President Donald Trump’s administration had taken to return him to the United States.

Ensign said he could not answer those questions and instead requested more time because the administration is currently “vetting what we can say” in court. 

He also objected to the requirement to submit daily updates.

Xinis, who earlier set a deadline, now expired, for the government to bring back Abrego Garcia, was critical of that response.

“The record as it stands is, despite this court’s directive … your clients have done nothing to facilitate the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia,” she said.

Xinis said she would schedule a hearing for early next week.

“We’re not going to slow walk this,” she said.

She continued to ask Ensign where Abrego Garcia was located.

Ensign said he had no information.

“It’s quite basic,” she said. “I’m not asking for state secrets.”

CECOT prison

Administration officials have said Abrego Garcia is in the custody of El Salvador’s government at the notorious prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.  The Beltsville man was apprehended by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement while driving his 5-year-old son home.

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, is visiting the White House Monday to meet with President Donald Trump.

The attorney representing Abrego Garcia’s family, Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, said he would welcome daily updates on what the Trump administration is doing to facilitate his client’s return.

“It’s quite clear that the government is playing a game with their own lawyers,” he said, noting that this is the second time he has faced a DOJ attorney who claimed he had little information for Xinis.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the attorney that originally argued on behalf of the government, Erez Reuveni, was placed on administrative leave for not “vigorously” defending the Trump administration.

Reuveni was candid with Xinis about how the Trump administration gave him no information as to why Abrego Garcia could not be returned, despite admitting to his deportation as a mistake.

Administration official rejects district court authority

Meanwhile, Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, rejected the judge’s authority to require the return of Abrego Garcio in a social media post after the high court decision.

“SCOTUS rejected the lower court and made clear that a district court judge cannot exercise Article II foreign affairs powers. The illegal alien terrorist is in the custody and control of a sovereign foreign nation,” Miller wrote.

While the Trump administration has labeled Abrego Garcia as a member of the MS-13 gang, he has no criminal record in the U.S. or any country.

Before Friday’s hearing, the Department of Justice had sought a delay until Wednesday, which Xinis rejected in a searing order.

“First, the Defendants’ act of sending Abrego Garcia to El Salvador was wholly illegal from the moment it happened, and Defendants have been on notice of the same,” she wrote. “Second, the Defendants’ suggestion that they need time to meaningfully review a four-page (Supreme Court) Order that reaffirms this basic principle blinks at reality.”

She said the Department of Justice should have been making efforts to return Abrego Garcia after her decision last week ordering them to do so.

During the hearing she asked Ensign what progress the Trump administration made before the Supreme Court stayed the deadline she had set — so from April 4 until April 7.

Ensign said that the Trump administration was “not yet prepared to share that information.”

Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT, on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday ruled the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of a Maryland man to the United States after he was wrongly deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, but stopped short of requiring his return.

The high court said the Trump administration must try to bring back Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, who was deported due to an “administrative error” admitted by the Trump administration.

The high court did not give the administration a date by which to return Abrego Garcia, saying the deadline in a District of Columbia court order has expired. The Supreme Court said the district court also needs to clarify what it meant by saying the administration must “effectuate” the return of Abrego Garcia and the scope of that term is “unclear” and may exceed the district court’s authority.

The Trump administration has repeatedly rejected retrieving Abrego Garcia from prison.  President Donald Trump and other high-ranking officials have alleged Abrego Garcia is a MS-13 gang member, but produced no evidence and have defended his deportation, despite admitting his removal was a mistake.  

“We don’t want them back,” Trump said April 8, referencing the case. “Can you imagine, you spend all of that time, energy and money on getting them out, and then you have a judge that sits there… (saying), he said, ‘No, bring him back.’”

It’s unclear how long Abrego Garcia will remain in the prison unless he is returned to the U.S., but El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said based on the $6 million agreement between his country and the U.S., those men at the prison will remain there for at least a year.

Bukele is scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House Monday.

Effect on other prisoners

Thursday’s decision may have ramifications for the 238 Venezuelans who were deported to the same prison, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

They were sent there under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a wartime law their attorneys say denied them due process because those subject to it were not able to challenge their removal in court.

The Supreme Court will allow, for now, the continued removal of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act, but those subject to a presidential proclamation issued by Trump citing the Alien Enemies Act must be given notice of their removal under the wartime law and a court hearing. The court action also must be in the locations where they are incarcerated.

Arrested while driving son

The Abrego Garcia case garnered national attention when he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement while driving his 5-year-old son home. Abrego Garcia was not charged with an offense, but was apprehended by ICE because his “status had changed.”

In 2019 Abrego Garcia was given a final order of removal, but an immigration judge granted him protection from removal to his home country because it was more “likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs in El Salvador” if he was returned, according to court documents.

But on March 15 he was placed on one of three deportation flights to El Salvador.

The Trump administration has argued that Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody and therefore cannot be returned to the United States.

There is precedent from the U.S. government to return an immigrant accidentally deported, including U.S. citizens. Between fiscal year 2015 and fiscal year 2020, ICE accidentally deported 70 U.S. citizens who needed to be returned, according to a 2021 U.S. Government Accountability Office report.  

Jennifer Vasquez Sura, left, and Congressional Hispanic Chair Adriano Espaillat, a New York Democrat, center, talk with Democratic Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, right, after a press conference calling for the return of Vasquez Sura's husband, who was erroneously deported. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Jennifer Vasquez Sura has a message for her husband, who was erroneously deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador by the Trump administration.

“I’m still fighting for you,” she said during a Thursday press conference with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Maryland Democratic lawmakers who are demanding the Trump administration return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States.

Abrego Garcia, a national of El Salvador with deportation protections, was not charged with any offense but was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement March 12 due to a “change in status.”

Trump officials have admitted his removal on March 15 to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, was a mistake, but have stood by their decision.

“This so-called administrative error has destroyed my family’s happiness, my children’s innocence,” Vasquez Sura said, her voice shaking as she took small breaks before continuing to read her statement.

Pleas to president of El Salvador

The chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Adriano Espaillat, said he is writing a letter to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele to ask for Abrego Garcia’s release as well as request for a congressional delegation to visit CECOT.

Bukele is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House April 14. Espaillat, a New York Democrat, said if he does not receive a response from Bukele, he will ask for a response from Bukele when he visits the White House.

“We don’t know his condition,” Espaillat said of Abrego Garcia. “The family deserves to know his condition, and if they don’t tell us, we will visit the prison ourselves.”

Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey, whose district includes the family’s home in Beltsville, criticized the Trump administration for not only accidentally deporting Abrego Garcia, but labeling him as a MS-13 gang member, despite his lack of a criminal record in any country, including the U.S.

“He was whisked off without any due process, and is now in a torturous … jail in El Salvador,” Van Hollen said.

Senators send letter

In 2019 Abrego Garcia was given removal orders to his home country. He was granted protections from removal by an immigration judge because it was more “likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs in El Salvador” if he were returned, according to court documents.

On Tuesday, two dozen Senate Democrats sent a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, demanding  Abrego Garcia be returned to the U.S.

The Trump administration was ordered by a federal judge to return Abrego Garcia by Monday, and while the order was unanimously held up by a panel of judges on an appeals court, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily paused the deadline to return Abrego Garcia.

The high court will make a full decision on whether or not the Trump administration will be required to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. 

Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, speaks during her confirmation hearing before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill on Jan. 17, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)

This story was updated at 10:16 a.m. EDT on April 9.

WASHINGTON — Two dozen Democratic senators Tuesday demanded the Trump administration return to the United States a Maryland father who was deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador by mistake.

Immigration officials admitted to an “administrative error” in the March 15 deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, despite protections from removal to his home country placed in 2019 by an immigration judge.

“Your unwillingness to immediately rectify this ‘administrative error’ is unacceptable,” according to the letter addressed to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It was led by Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

Court battle

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday temporarily paused a lower court order that required the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia from the prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

A full decision by the high court on whether the Trump administration would be required to return him is expected this week, and it could have implications for the more than 250 men who have been taken to the prison.

The Trump administration has argued that Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody, despite paying El Salvador $6 million to detain him, along with other immigrants deported.

Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke with reporters Tuesday outside the White House, and said she did not agree with the lower or appeals court orders to require the U.S. to return Abrego Garcia.

“We believe he should stay where he is,” she said.

Bondi also placed the DOJ attorney who argued on behalf of the Trump administration, Erez Reuveni, on indefinite administrative leave over the weekend.

‘Need for due process’

An appeals court Monday unanimously upheld an order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis that the administration return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. by midnight Monday.

The 24 Democratic senators and one independent argued the Trump administration should comply with the order by Xinis.

“The Administration’s mass deportation agenda does not transcend immigration law or the need for due process,” according to the letter.

“And when the Administration makes a mistake as severe as sending an individual with protected status to a foreign prison, it cannot simply shrug off responsibility and allege that there is nothing it can do to reunite him with his wife and child, who are American citizens,” according to the letter.

The letter also requires Noem and ICE to answer several questions and return answers by April 22.

The senators ask why the agency and ICE are not working to return a wrongly deported individual, as the agencies have done so in the past and why Trump officials like the vice president and White House press secretary continue to label Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, as a gang member without evidence.

The letter also asks for a copy of the contract agreement between El Salvador and the U.S. to detain the immigrants at CECOT.

List of senators

The 24 Senate Democrats on the letter besides Van Hollen included Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed of Rhode Island; Peter Welch of Vermont; Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla of California; Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts; Richard Durbin and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois; Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut; Cory Booker of New Jersey; Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire; Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia; Christopher Coons of Delaware; Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz of Hawaii; Ron Wyden and Jeffrey Merkley of Oregon; Martin Heinrich of New Mexico; Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland; Gary Peters of Michigan; and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont also signed the letter. 

 

Prisoners sit at the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, a mega-prison in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador, on April 4, 2025. The Trump administration has acknowledged mistakenly deporting a Maryland resident from El Salvador with protected status to the prison but is arguing against returning him to the U.S. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)

This story was updated at 4:34 p.m. Eastern.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily granted the Trump administration’s request Monday to block a lower court’s order to bring back to the United States a Maryland man who was erroneously deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.

The order from Chief Justice John Roberts that stays a lower court order “pending further order of The Chief Justice or of the Court” came hours after another appeals court upheld an order to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, Maryland, to the United States.

Roberts’ order is not final, but pauses the lower court’s order to return Abrego Garcia while the justices reach a final decision on that order’s validity.

Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, told reporters Friday she hoped her husband would be returned to the U.S. by the midnight Monday deadline set by a federal judge.

The Trump administration made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court on Monday, where U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that, despite the government’s admitted error in deporting Abrego Garcia, the lower court does not have the jurisdiction to order the Trump administration to return someone who the administration argues is no longer in U.S. custody.

The appeal to the high court came within minutes of an appeals court panel unanimously upholding the order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who set a deadline of midnight Monday for the administration to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

Despite being granted legal protection from deportation by a judge in 2019, immigration officials detained Abrego Garcia and sent him on a March 15 deportation flight to El Salvador, where he was incarcerated at the notorious prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

‘The government screwed up’

A panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agreed Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador was a major misstep.

“The United States Government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process,” two judges on the panel, Robert B. King and Stephanie D. Thacker, wrote.

King was appointed by former President Bill Clinton and Thacker was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

“The Government’s contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene, are unconscionable,” they wrote.

J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, wrote in his option that “[t]here is no question that the government screwed up here.”

He noted that President Donald Trump’s administration has not made an effort to rectify its mistake.

“The facts of this case thus present the potential for a disturbing loophole: namely that the government could whisk individuals to foreign prisons in violation of court orders and then contend, invoking its Article II powers, that it is no longer their custodian, and there is nothing that can be done. It takes no small amount of imagination to understand that this is a path of perfect lawlessness, one that courts cannot condone,” Wilkinson said.

Order to return

On Friday, Xinis ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia.

The Department of Justice quickly appealed the decision and Xinis issued a scathing 22-page order Sunday that cited records and official statements from Trump officials saying the administration has the power to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

“Neither the United States nor El Salvador have told anyone why he was returned to the very country to which he cannot return, or why he is detained at CECOT,” she wrote. “That silence is telling. As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador—let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere.”

Abrego Garcia was on one of three deportation flights to CECOT on March 15. Two flights contained 238 Venezuelans who were deported under a wartime law that is currently being challenged in another court case.

Xinis slammed the Trump administration for arguing that she had no jurisdiction to order Abrego Garcia’s return.

“For the following reasons, their jurisdictional arguments fail as a matter of law,” she said. “Further, to avoid clear irreparable harm, and because equity and justice compels it, the Court grants the narrowest, daresay only, relief warranted: to order that Defendants return Abrego Garcia to the United States.”

She noted that the two countries have an agreement to house more than 250 deported men at CECOT.

The U.S. is paying El Salvador $6 million to detain the men at the prison. Trump is scheduled to meet with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele at the White House on April 14.

In response to the district court’s order to return Abrego Garcia, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, posted a GIF of a confused cartoon bunny on social media.

Attorney placed on leave

The Department of Justice attorney who argued on behalf of the Trump administration, Erez Reuveni, was placed on indefinite administrative leave over the weekend.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said during a Fox News interview Sunday that Reuveni was placed on leave because he did not “vigorously” defend the administration.

Reuveni, a veteran government attorney, has argued for the DOJ over the course of four administrations.

During Friday’s hearing he was candid that the Trump administration had provided him little information on why Abrego Garcia could not be returned to the U.S. and that “the government made a choice here to produce no evidence.”

Protestors outside the U.S. District Court of Maryland in Greenbelt rally in support of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father who was deported to El Salvador in an "administrative error,” calling for him to be returned to the U.S. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

GREENBELT, MARYLAND — A federal judge in Maryland Friday ordered the Trump administration to return a national from El Salvador by April 7 who was erroneously deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, despite an order blocking such removal.

The ruling from U.S. District Court of Maryland Judge Paula Xinis sets up a fight with the Trump administration. Officials have admitted the deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia of Beltsville, Maryland, was a mistake, but have stood by their actions.

The case could also mean that the more than 250 Venezuelan men in a separate case who were removed under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 without due process can be returned to the U.S. 

Cheers could be heard outside the courthouse after the order, as dozens of protestors waited for the decision.

Hours later, the Department of Justice appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.

‘It was unconstitutional’

Xinis, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, said “there is no evidence to hold” Abrego Garcia at the notorious prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, known as CECOT, and even noted his March 12 arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had no basis for removal.

“That means from the moment he was seized, it was unconstitutional,” Xinis said.

The attorney representing the Department of Justice, Erez Reuveni, said the Trump administration is not challenging the merits of the case and the only argument it has is that the Maryland court lacks jurisdiction because Abrego Garcia is in the custody of El Salvador.

Xinis pressed on what grounds Abrego Garcia was removed to the prison.

Reuveni said he has no idea and was not given any information from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

She asked why Abrego Garcia could not be returned to the United States, which is what his family was seeking in Friday’s preliminary injunction hearing.

Reuveni said that he has asked officials that same question, and has not received an answer that is “satisfactory.”

Reuveni made one request to the court, that Xinis give the administration of President Donald Trump 24 hours to try to rectify the situation.

U.S. paying $6 million

Attorneys for Abrego Garcia are not only asking for him to be returned, but for the Trump administration to cease payments to the mega-prison for his detainment. The White House has stated it’s paying the government of El Salvador $6 million to detain nearly 300 men.

Reuveni said because Abrego Garcia is in custody in El Salvador, he is no longer in U.S. custody and therefore cannot be retrieved.

Xinis pushed back on that argument, noting that the U.S. and El Salvador have a contract to detain the men at the prison.

Reuveni said that it’s not a contract the U.S. and El Salvador have.

Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, the attorney for Abrego Garcia, contended that “there is significant coordination between the two governments.”

He noted that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has filmed herself while visiting CECOT and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has a close relationship with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.

Xinis said to Reuveni that because the U.S. is paying El Salvador $6 million to detain the men, “I can draw the logical argument that the U.S. is the payer.”

She asked Reuveni if he has any evidence to show her that contradicts that knowledge.

“The government made a choice here to produce no evidence,” Reuveni said.

Wartime law invoked

On March 15, three deportation flights left for El Salvador with two planes carrying Venezuelans removed under the wartime law and a third plane that carried nationals from El Salvador, including Abrego Garcia.

A 2019 order from an immigration judge deemed that Abrego Garcia should be removed from the U.S. However, he was granted protection because it was more “likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs in El Salvador” if he were returned, according to court documents.

Attorneys for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could have challenged that decision, but did not. Instead, Abrego Garcia was required to check in with ICE every year, including earlier this year.

When Abrego Garcia was driving his 5-year-old son home on March 12, he was pulled over by ICE and informed that his “status had changed,” and was quickly transferred to a detention center in Texas. Within three days he was on a plane to CECOT, despite the order barring his removal to El Salvador.

Xinis asked Reuveni under what authority Abrego Garcia was removed and he said he didn’t know. All he was given was a declaration by ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert L. Cerna, he said.

“This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13,” Cerna wrote in a Monday court filing.

Xinis said if the government could not cite what legal authority he was being removed under, “then there is no basis to have seized him in the first place. That’s how I’m looking at it.”

ICE and the Department of Justice have admitted the removal was an “administrative error,” but the Trump administration has stood by its decision.

White House gets involved

Vice President J.D. Vance wrote on social media, without evidence, that Abrego Garcia was a convicted member of the MS-13 gang and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt this week echoed Vance.

“The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang,” Leavitt said.

Because of those comments by Leavitt, Sandoval-Moshenberg asked the judge to “keep the government on a tight leash.”

Abrego Garcia does not have a criminal record in the U.S., El Salvador or anywhere else, Sandoval-Moshenberg has stated.

Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. without legal authorization in 2011, fleeing violence in his home country of El Salvador, according to court records. Six years later while he was looking for work at a Home Depot in Hyattsville, Maryland, he was taken into custody by Prince George’s County Police Department.

While there, he was questioned about gang affiliation and law enforcement did not believe he was not a member of the MS-13 gang, according to court records.

The evidence officers submitted included Abrego Garcia wearing a Chicago Bulls hat, a hoodie and a statement from a confidential informant that stated he was a member of MS-13, according to court documents.

While he was never charged with, or convicted of being, in a gang, he was kept in ICE detention while his case proceeded before an immigration judge.

Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center  or CECOT, on March 26, 2025, in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The White House Tuesday defended the deportation of a national from El Salvador to a notorious mega-prison in that country, despite Trump administration officials admitting in court filings that the removal was a mistake.

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia of Beltsville, Maryland, was ordered in 2019 to be removed from the United States by an immigration judge, but was granted protection from removal because it was more “likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs in El Salvador” if he were returned, according to court documents.

Yet on March 15 he was placed on one of three deportation flights to El Salvador. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Justice admitted in separate court filings that his deportation to the brutal prison, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, was an “administrative error.”

“This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13,” ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert L. Cerna wrote in a Monday court filing.

Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, the attorney for Abrego Garcia, is requesting a preliminary injunction from the U.S. District Court of Maryland, which would require the Trump administration to make a request to the government of El Salvador for Abrego Garcia to be returned to U.S. custody.

The lawyer also wants a halt to U.S. payments to the government of El Salvador for detaining his client at the “notorious CECOT torture prison.”

A hearing is set for 1 p.m. Eastern Friday before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis. She was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2016.

Press secretary defends decision

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt Tuesday said that Abrego Garcia was a leader of the MS-13 gang, despite his deportation being “a clerical error.”

“The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang,” she said.

She said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has evidence of his gang activity that she has seen and she also alleged that Abrego Garcia was involved in human trafficking.

Sandoval-Moshenberg, the attorney for Abrego Garcia, has denied his involvement in any gangs, noting he has no criminal charges or convictions in the United States, El Salvador or any other country.

“Abrego Garcia is not a member of or has no affiliation with Tren de Aragua, MS-13, or any other criminal or street gang. Although he has been accused of general ‘gang affiliation,’ the U.S. government has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation,” according to court filings.

Leavitt also dismissed the 2019 order from an immigration judge granting Abrego Garcia protections from removal.

Federal law bars the removal of an individual if they will face persecution, known as a “withholding of removal.” Because of this condition, Abrego Garcia was required to check in with ICE each year, which he has complied with since 2019, according to court filings.

“Who does that judge work for? It was an immigration judge who works for the Department of Justice at the direction of the attorney general of the United States, whose name is Pam Bondi, who has committed to eradicating MS-13 from our nation’s interior,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt said that 17 more men were deported to CECOT Monday. The U.S. is paying El Salvador’s government $6 million to detain all those deported there.

Identified from news story

Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen with whom he has a child, was detained by ICE on March 12 while driving with his 5-year-old son near Baltimore, Maryland. He was informed by ICE officials that his “status had changed,” according to court filings.

Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, “was called and instructed to appear at their location within ten minutes to get her five-year old son, A.A.V.; otherwise, the ICE officers threatened that the child would be handed over to Child Protective Services.”

Vasquez Sura tried to call the ICE facility that her husband was transferred to and inform officials that he could not be sent back to El Salvador.

“Her attempts to protest by saying that he had won protection from being removed to El Salvador fell on deaf ears,” according to court filings.

Within three days, he would become one of the 261 men on one of three deportation flights to CECOT in El Salvador, despite a temporary restraining order in place from a district court judge from the District of Columbia that applied generally to all the deportations.

Vasquez Sura was able to identify him from a news article when a photo showed men sent to the prison with their heads shaved and arms over their necks. She recognized her husband’s scar on his head and his tattoo.

DOJ arguments

Department of Justice attorneys, on behalf of the Trump administration, argued that the district court in Maryland lacks jurisdiction because Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody and his lawyers have not shown it is likely he could be returned.

“There is no showing that any payment made to El Salvador is yet to occur; no showing that El Salvador is likely to release CECOT detainees but for any such payment; no showing that El Salvador is even inclined to consider a request to release a detainee at the United States’ request,” according to the DOJ filing.

The Department of Justice also argues that his attorney has “not clearly shown a likelihood that Abrego Garcia will be tortured or killed in CECOT.”

“While there may be allegations of abuses in other Salvadoran prisons—very few in relation to the large number of detainees—there is no clear showing that Abrego Garcia himself is likely to be tortured or killed in CECOT,” according to DOJ.

The Department of Justice said the district court should defer to the Trump administration’s determination “that Abrego Garcia will not likely be tortured or killed in El Salvador.”

“Although the government erred in removing Abrego Garcia specifically to El Salvador, the government would not have removed any alien to El Salvador for detention in CECOT if it believed that doing so would violate the United States’ obligations under the Convention (Against Torture),” according to DOJ.