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The Department of Homeland Security admitted that it deported an innocent man with protected status to an El Salvadoran prison known for torture and human-rights abuses. The Trump administration claims there’s nothing they, or any American court, can do to bring him back.
According to a Tuesday report from The Atlantic, the Trump administration acknowledged in a court filing that they had deported El Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to his country of origin. Abrego Garcia was one of more than 200 El Salvadoran and Venezuelan migrants accused of terrorism and gang affiliations with little evidence, and deported without due process under the president’s dubiously legal attempt to invoke the 18th century Alien Enemies Act.
Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has a five-year-old son, was granted protection from removal — a status that prevents the government from deporting an individual to a country where they may face imminent harm — after immigration officials claimed in 2019 that an informant had named Abrego Garcia as a member of the gang MS-13. Lawyers for Abrego Garcia say the accusations of gang affiliation are false, and directed The Atlantic to records of the incident in which the police officers who initially detained him found there was no reliable evidence to link Abrego Garcia to MS-13, and his lack of convictions or other incidents involving law enforcement.
In the court filing on Monday, the Trump administration acknowledges that “on March 15, although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error.”
Abrego Garcia was reportedly arrested in front of his young son, who is autistic and nonverbal, and his wife only learned where he’d been sent to after seeing him in a propaganda video produced by El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele showing her husband and other detainees being frogmarched and manhandled by El Salvadoran law enforcement.
Despite agreeing to pay Bukele $6 million a year to house the prisoners — which attorneys for Abrego Garcia have asked be withheld until he is returned to the United States — the government claimed in its filing that they have no jurisdiction over Abrego Garcia, or any of the other prisoners sent to CECOT, and cannot reasonably be expected to produce any of the deportees.
“Despite their allegations of continued payment for Abrego Garcia’s detention, Plaintiffs do not argue that the United States can exercise its will over a foreign sovereign. The most they ask for is a court order that the United States entreat — or even cajole — a close ally in its fight against transnational cartels,” the government wrote.
It’s a stunning admission by the Trump administration, but outside of court its key figures are refusing to admit any wrongdoing. When Pod Save America host Jon Favreau shared The Atlantic’s story on social media — tagging several prominent members of the Trump administration and asking if they cared to comment, Vice President J.D. Vance took the bait.
“You just admitted to accidentally sending an innocent father from Maryland to a torture dungeon in El Salvador. And you refuse to do anything about it,” Favreau wrote.
In response, Vance accused Favreau of not having read the court documents related to Abrego Garcia’s case. “He was a convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here,” the vice president falsely claimed.
“My further comment is that it’s gross to get fired up about gang members getting deported while ignoring citizens they victimize,” he added.
When called out on the misrepresentation by Politico’s Kyle Cheney — who noted that Abrego Garcia ultimately won his case against the government’s accusation that he was a gang member after spending more than a year in ICE detention — Vance accused the reporter of being “unable or unwilling to look at the facts here.”
“In 2019, an Immigration Judge (under the Biden administration) determined that the deported man was, in fact, a member of the MS-13 gang. He also apparently had multiple traffic violations for which he failed to appear in court. A real winner,” Vance wrote on X.
Cheney was quick to point out that Trump was president in 2019, not Joe Biden. Vance later edited the post to correct the error.
By the government’s own admission, Abrego Garcia is neither a convicted member of MS-13, nor is he responsible for the victimization of any American citizens. In the removal of Abrego Garcia to a legal black hole from which the administration claims it cannot bring him back, the U.S. government has victimized an entire family. His wife and their disabled child have lost a provider, a father, a husband, and are clinging to dwindling hope that they’ll ever get him back.
