by Ariana Figueroa, Daily Montanan
April 1, 2025
WASHINGTON — The White House Tuesday defended the deportation of a national from El Salvador to a notorious mega-prison in that country, despite Trump administration officials admitting in court filings that the removal was a mistake.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia of Beltsville, Maryland, was ordered in 2019 to be removed from the United States by an immigration judge, but was granted protection from removal because it was more “likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs in El Salvador” if he were returned, according to court documents.
ALSO READ:'Not much I can do': GOP senator gives up fight against Trump's tariffs
Yet on March 15 he was placed on one of three deportation flights to El Salvador. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Justice admitted in separate court filings that his deportation to the brutal prison, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, was an “administrative error.”
“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,” ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert L. Cerna wrote in a Monday court filing.
Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, the attorney for Abrego Garcia, is requesting a preliminary injunction from the U.S. District Court of Maryland, which would require the Trump administration to make a request to the government of El Salvador for Abrego Garcia to be returned to U.S. custody.
The lawyer also wants a halt to U.S. payments to the government of El Salvador for detaining his client at the “notorious CECOT torture prison.”
A hearing is set for 1 p.m. Eastern Friday before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis. She was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2016.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt Tuesday said that Abrego Garcia was a leader of the MS-13 gang, despite his deportation being “a clerical error.”
“The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang,” she said.
She said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has evidence of his gang activity that she has seen and she also alleged that Abrego Garcia was involved in human trafficking.
Sandoval-Moshenberg, the attorney for Abrego Garcia, has denied his involvement in any gangs, noting he has no criminal charges or convictions in the United States, El Salvador or any other country.
“Abrego Garcia is not a member of or has no affiliation with Tren de Aragua, MS-13, or any other criminal or street gang. Although he has been accused of general ‘gang affiliation,’ the U.S. government has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation,” according to court filings.
Leavitt also dismissed the 2019 order from an immigration judge granting Abrego Garcia protections from removal.
Federal law bars the removal of an individual if they will face persecution, known as a “withholding of removal.” Because of this condition, Abrego Garcia was required to check in with ICE each year, which he has complied with since 2019, according to court filings.
“Who does that judge work for? It was an immigration judge who works for the Department of Justice at the direction of the attorney general of the United States, whose name is Pam Bondi, who has committed to eradicating MS-13 from our nation’s interior,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt said that 17 more men were deported to CECOT Monday. The U.S. is paying El Salvador’s government $6 million to detain all those deported there.
Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen with whom he has a child, was detained by ICE on March 12 while driving with his 5-year-old son near Baltimore, Maryland. He was informed by ICE officials that his “status had changed,” according to court filings.
Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, “was called and instructed to appear at their location within ten minutes to get her five-year old son, A.A.V.; otherwise, the ICE officers threatened that the child would be handed over to Child Protective Services.”
Vasquez Sura tried to call the ICE facility that her husband was transferred to and inform officials that he could not be sent back to El Salvador.
“Her attempts to protest by saying that he had won protection from being removed to El Salvador fell on deaf ears,” according to court filings.
Within three days, he would become one of the 261 men on one of three deportation flights to CECOT in El Salvador, despite a temporary restraining order in place from a district court judge from the District of Columbia that applied generally to all the deportations.
Vasquez Sura was able to identify him from a news article when a photo showed men sent to the prison with their heads shaved and arms over their necks. She recognized her husband’s scar on his head and his tattoo.
Department of Justice attorneys, on behalf of the Trump administration, argued that the district court in Maryland lacks jurisdiction because Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody and his lawyers have not shown it is likely he could be returned.
“There is no showing that any payment made to El Salvador is yet to occur; no showing that El Salvador is likely to release CECOT detainees but for any such payment; no showing that El Salvador is even inclined to consider a request to release a detainee at the United States’ request,” according to the DOJ filing.
The Department of Justice also argues that his attorney has “not clearly shown a likelihood that Abrego Garcia will be tortured or killed in CECOT.”
“While there may be allegations of abuses in other Salvadoran prisons—very few in relation to the large number of detainees—there is no clear showing that Abrego Garcia himself is likely to be tortured or killed in CECOT,” according to DOJ.
The Department of Justice said the district court should defer to the Trump administration’s determination “that Abrego Garcia will not likely be tortured or killed in El Salvador.”
“Although the government erred in removing Abrego Garcia specifically to El Salvador, the government would not have removed any alien to El Salvador for detention in CECOT if it believed that doing so would violate the United States’ obligations under the Convention (Against Torture),” according to DOJ.
Last updated 2:38 p.m., Apr. 1, 2025
Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.