President Donald Trump‘s administration has acknowledged mistakenly deporting a Maryland man with protected legal status to a notorious El Salvador prison but is arguing against returning him to federal custody in the United States because of alleged gang ties (article available here).
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, 29, was arrested on March 12, 2025, after completing a shift as a sheet metal worker apprentice at a construction site in Baltimore. He was then sent to a notorious prison in his home country despite an immigration judge’s ruling in 2019 that he not be deported to El Salvador because he had established it was “more likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs.”
Garcia lived in Maryland with his wife and 5-year-old child, who is autistic and intellectually disabled. The couple both work full-time, the filing says.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials admitted in a court filing on Monday night that ICE “was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador,” but still deported Abrego Garcia “because of an administrative error.”
The deportation appears to coincide with the March 15, 2025, departure of three planeloads of people to El Salvador. Lawyers for some of those who were deported said they were falsely accused of gang affiliations because of their tattoos.