The Trump administration acknowledged late Monday that it had inadvertently deported a man to El Salvador last month despite a court's determination that he had a legitimate fear of persecution in his home country.
The Trump administration mistakenly abducted and deported Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a father who fled gang violence and has protected status, to an El Salvador mega-prison. Now they say they can't get him back. I'm demanding they do.
-- Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (@jayapal.house.gov) April 1, 2025 at 1:30 PM
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Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has a 5-year-old disabled child who is also a U.S. citizen, has no criminal record in the United States, according to his attorney. The Trump administration does not claim he has a criminal record, but called him a "danger to the community" and an active member of MS-13, the Salvadoran gang that Trump has declared a foreign terrorist organization.www.theatlantic.com
Sandoval-Moshenberg said that those charges are false, and that the gang label stems from a 2019 incident when Abrego Garcia and three other men were detained in a Home Depot parking lot by a police detective in Prince George's County, Maryland. During questioning, one of the men told officers that Abrego Garcia was a gang member, but the man offered no proof and police said they didn't believe him, filings show. Police did not identify him as a gang member.
Abrego Garcia was not charged with a crime, but he was handed over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the arrest to face deportation. In those proceedings, the government claimed that a reliable informant had identified him as a ranking member of MS-13. Abrego Garcia and his family hired an attorney and fought the government's attempt to deport him. He received "withholding of removal" six months later, a protected status.
It is not a path to permanent U.S. residency, but it means the government won't deport him back to his home country, because he's more likely than not to face harm there.
Abrego Garcia has had no contact with any law-enforcement agency since his release, according to his attorney. He works full time as a union sheet-metal apprentice, has complied with requirements to check in annually with ICE, and cares for his 5-year-old son, who has autism and a hearing defect, and is unable to communicate verbally.
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