A Maryland man who was in the United States legally was deported to El Salvador and imprisoned there because of an “administrative error,” Trump administration officials said in a court filing on Monday, adding that American courts lacked the jurisdiction to have him released.
The man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, had lived in the United States under protected legal status since October 2019. His wife and 5-year-old child are both U.S. citizens.
On March 12, Mr. Abrego Garcia was stopped by immigration agents who told him inaccurately that his status had changed, according to court documents. Mr. Abrego Garcia had “withholding from removal” status, which means he was the subject of a deportation order but was allowed to stay in the United States because of the likelihood that he could be harmed if he returned to El Salvador.
Three days later, Mr. Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador, and he is now being held in its sprawling Terrorism Confinement Center, a so-called mega prison known as CECOT. In the court filing, Trump administration officials said there was nothing they could do to correct the error, given that Mr. Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody. His deportation was first reported by The Atlantic.
Mr. Abrego Garcia’s inadvertent deportation is the latest twist in a pitched battle between immigration lawyers and the White House over the administration’s efforts to deport migrants to El Salvador under both traditional and highly unorthodox procedures.
Mr. Abrego Garcia was placed on one of three flights to El Salvador on March 15 as the Trump administration was hastily ramping up its efforts to use a rarely invoked wartime statute, known as the Alien Enemies Act, to deport scores of Venezuelan immigrants accused of being members of the street gang Tren de Aragua.
Two of the planes were sent to El Salvador under the authority of the act, administration officials have said. But the third — the one on which Mr. Abrego Garcia was traveling — was supposed to have been transporting only migrants with formal removal orders signed by a judge.
The Trump administration now admits that Mr. Abrego Garcia’s removal was an “administrative error.” Moreover, Justice Department lawyers said in court papers that there was little they could do get him back from El Salvador, and have urged the judge overseeing the case to reject his family’s petition to bring him home, arguing that the White House cannot force the Salvadoran government to release him and that U.S. federal courts have no jurisdiction to order his release.
While Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case is separate from those of the Venezuelans who are challenging the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act, it raises some similar issues. Lawyers for the Venezuelans have persistently argued that their clients have had no opportunity to challenge accusations that they are gang members, and several have ended up in the same Salvadoran prison without any way of protesting their plight or returning to the United States.
Officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency tried to deport Mr. Abrego Garcia in March 2019, according to court documents. During those proceedings, they claimed a confidential informant had told them that Mr. Abrego Garcia was a high-ranking member of MS-13, the violent Salvadoran criminal gang.
Mr. Abrego Garcia appealed the claims that he was a danger to the community and filed a petition for asylum. He was granted “withholding from removal” status in October 2019 by an immigration judge, which protected him from being deported to El Salvador. That status was active — and ICE agents were aware of it — when Mr. Abrego Garcia was placed on a deportation flight last month, according to court documents.
In a post on X, Vice President JD Vance defended the deportation, claiming Mr. Abrego Garcia was “a convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here.”
Mr. Abrego Garcia’s wife and relatives filed their civil suit against the Trump administration on his behalf last month, asking the U.S. government to halt its payments to El Salvador for holding deportees until Mr. Abrego Garcia was returned.
In Monday’s court filing, administration officials balked at that request, claiming the U.S. courts did not have jurisdiction to order such actions and saying Mr. Abrego Garcia’s plight should not stand in the way of the Trump administration’s greater foreign policy goals.
The plaintiffs’ “request would harm the public interest by preventing the executive from implementing a unified course of conduct for the United States’ foreign affairs,” three Justice Department and immigration officials wrote in the filing. “They have made no showing that the removal of Abrego Garcia to El Salvador was something other than an administrative error.”
Ali Watkins covers international news and is based in London. More about Ali Watkins
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump. More about Alan Feuer
The post U.S. Says Deportation of Maryland Man Was an ‘Administrative Error’ appeared first on New York Times.
