Secretary of State Marco Rubio testifies before the House Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs at the Rayburn House Office Building on May 21, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by John McDonnell/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is personally working to facilitate the return of a man wrongly deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, at the request of the Department of Homeland Security, the Trump administration said on Monday in court documents.

If successful, the man, identified in documents in federal court in Maryland only by the pseudonym of “Cristian,” would be the first deported person returned from the brutal Salvadoran Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

Bringing him back to the United States would also contradict the Trump administration’s long-running argument in the courts and to the public that El Salvador has custody over hundreds of men sent there in March, not the U.S.

The Trump-appointed judge in Cristian’s case on Friday had blasted the administration for not detailing to her its actions to return him.

The Trump administration has made the same argument in the case of another wrongly deported man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia of Maryland, despite a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate his return.

Trump and other top U.S. officials have alleged Abrego Garcia is a gang member, though there is no evidence of that. President Donald Trump has also acknowledged he could bring Abrego Garcia back if he wanted to do so.

‘Prompt and diligent efforts on behalf of the United States’

The court document in Cristian’s case filed Monday by U.S. Department of Homeland Security official Mellissa B. Harper says that Rubio “has a personal relationship” with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and Salvadoran government officials that dates back over a decade to the Florida Republican’s time on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

The case is being heard in Baltimore, in the District of Maryland.

“Based on this deep experience with El Salvador and the Secretary’s familiarity with political and diplomatic sensitivities in that country, he is personally handling the discussions with the government of El Salvador regarding persons subject to the Court’s order detained in El Salvador,” according to the document.

“Secretary Rubio has read and understands this Court’s order, and wants to assure this Court that he is committed to making prompt and diligent efforts on behalf of the United States to comply with that order,” the document continues.

The document notes that DHS has asked the State Department for “assistance in complying with the Court’s order, including by entering into negotiations to facilitate Cristian’s return.”

Harper, who submitted the declaration, works at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division as the acting deputy executive associate director.

Judge harshly criticized administration

The document was filed after U.S. District Judge for the District of Maryland Stephanie Gallagher Friday slammed the Trump administration for its “blatant lack of effort to comply” with her order earlier this month to report steps taken to bring back Cristian, who in court documents is said to be 20 years old.

On May 6, she affirmed her decision that the Trump administration must facilitate Cristian’s return.

Gallagher, whom Trump appointed in 2018, gave the Department of Justice until Monday to comply with her order.

Cristian was among roughly 300 men sent to the Salvadoran mega-prison CECOT. About 200 of those men were removed under an 18th-century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, and the rest, such as Abrego Garcia, were removed under other immigration laws.

Cristian arrived in the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor and was part of a class action that barred removal from the U.S. while his asylum case was pending in immigration court.

Like the Abrego Garcia case, the administration said earlier it was powerless to compel the Salvadoran government to release Cristian, an argument Gallagher expressed frustration with Friday.

“Defendants simply reiterated their well-worn talking points on their reasons for removing Cristian and failed to provide any of the information the Court required,” Gallagher wrote in her order.

The Trump administration is paying El Salvador up to $15 million to detain removed immigrants from the U.S.

“As a Venezuelan native, he is in El Salvador only because the United States sent him there pursuant to an agreement apparently reached with the government of El Salvador,” Gallagher wrote.