Trump’s administration mistakenly deported a Maryland father to El Salvador “because of an administrative error” and now claims to be unable to return him from Salvadorian custody, according to a Monday court filing.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadorian citizen, was granted protected status in 2019 by an immigration judge. The status was placed to prevent his deportation back to El Salvador.
Garcia has lived in the US for a number of years with his wife and 5-year-old disabled son. He arrived illegally in 2011.
“On March 15, although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” the Trump administration filing read.
Garcia fled the country over a decade ago, citing gang violence - despite this, ICE arrested him in mid-March “due to his prominent role in MS-13,” according to a court declaration from a senior ICE official cited by CNN. His attorneys deny any affiliation with the criminal network.
The Prince George’s County Police Department deemed Garcia a gang member because “he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie” and “a confidential informant advised that he was an active member of MS-13 with the Westerns clique,” according to CNN.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt maintained on Tuesday that there was “a lot of evidence” that Garcia was a “leader” in MS-13.
“The individual in question is a member of the brutal MS-13 gang — we have intelligence reports that he is involved in human trafficking,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told CNN. “Whether he is in El Salvador or a detention facility in the US, he should be locked up.”
The “Administrative error” was only realized when Garcia’s wife, a US citizen, identified him in a photo of prisoners entering intake at CECOT, a notorious mega prison.
A report from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in September 2024 expressed concerns about overcrowding in the CECOT, citing a study that found inmates had an average 0.60 square meters (6.45 square feet) of space, below international standards. Many human rights organizations have criticized El Salvador's prisons and especially CECOT. Groups have reported human rights violations like torture, inmate deaths and mass trials.
“Abrego-Garcia was not on the initial manifest of the Title 8 flight to be removed to El Salvador,” Robert Cerna, an ICE field office director, said in his declaration. “Rather, he was an alternate. As others were removed from the flight for various reasons, he moved up the list and was assigned to the flight. The manifest did not indicate that Abrego-Garcia should not be removed.”
“Through administrative error, Abrego-Garcia was removed from the United States to El Salvador. 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,” the declaration confirmed.
While Garcia’s son in non-verbal, his wife told NBC News that he has found ways to communicate that he is missing his father - by clinging to his clothes and other personal items that hold his scent.
The Trump administration’s deportations
The Trump administration deported 261 people to El Salvador on March 15. For 137 of them, the US government justified the move under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, saying the men were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua but provided few details about their cases.
A US official said in a court filing that "many" of those 137 had no US convictions but still posed a serious threat.
Those people, along with 101 additional Venezuelans, were sent to CECOT for a one-year term that can be renewed, Bukele said. The US government paid El Salvador about $6 million to receive the deportees, the White House said.
The remaining 23 deportees were Salvadoran gang members, the White House said.