US admits deportation 'error' as alarm deepens over Trump policy

Donald Trump's hardline immigrant policy faced fresh scrutiny Tuesday after officials admitted that an "administrative error" in the hurried deportation process had sent a man to a notorious El Salvador prison.

The Trump administration touts its sweeping drive against migrants -- a key campaign promise -- as a crackdown on gang members and other violent criminals.

But mounting claims that a number of individuals with flimsy or no connection to organized crime have been summarily deported has prompted anger among rights groups, Democrats and even some Trump allies, including the influential podcaster Joe Rogan.

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A Salvadoran man was living in the US state of Maryland under protected legal status until he was flown to El Salvador with hundreds of other alleged gang members in mid-March, a court filing said Monday.

The flights came just hours after Trump invoked a rarely used wartime power, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, and despite a judge ordering a halt to the deportations.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was accused of being a gang member in 2019 but not convicted of any crime, and a judge had previously ordered that he should not be deported because he could be harmed in El Salvador.

In Monday's court filing, government lawyers admitted he had been deported in an "administrative error," but argued US courts did not now have jurisdiction to secure his release.

Pressed on the issue Tuesday, the White House was defiant, claiming unreleased evidence showed Abrego Garcia was "actually a leader of the brutal MS-13 gang."

The Salvadoran group and others, such as Venezuela's Tren de Aragua, have been declared "foreign terrorist organizations" by Trump.

"Foreign terrorists do not have legal protections in the United States of America anymore and it is within the president's executive authority and power to deport these heinous individuals from American communities," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told a briefing.

- Rogan pushback -

A separate reported case of a gay barber being deported has attracted US media attention, and attorneys for several deportees say their clients were targeted only because of their tattoos.

Rogan, who backed Trump in the 2024 election, said Saturday it was "horrific" that innocent people could be swept up in the push to deport gang members.

"You got to get scared that people who are not criminals are getting lassoed up and deported and sent to El Salvador prisons," said the comedian and mixed martial arts commentator.

"Let's get the gang members out. Everybody agrees. But let's not (see) innocent gay hairdressers get lumped up with the gangs."

Vice President JD Vance weighed in on the issue Tuesday on social media, but made multiple clarifications after including errors in his posts.

After first calling Abrego Garcia a "convicted MS-13 gang member," he later said an immigration judge "determined" he was in MS-13 and that "whatever 'due process' he was entitled to, he received."

The invocation of the centuries old Alien Enemies Act has spurred heated legal debates over migrants' rights to due process and the extent of judicial review over executive actions.

On Friday, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to overturn the federal judge's halt on deportations under the authority.

Trump's deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a fierce opponent of illegal immigration, has repeatedly blasted the judge's actions as a threat to democracy.

"Friendly reminder: If you illegally invaded our country the only 'process' you are entitled to is deportation," he said Tuesday on social media.