A federal judge ordered the Trump administration Friday to bring an alleged migrant gang member back to the US after an “administrative error” resulted in his deportation to El Salvador’s notorious maximum security prison.
Greenbelt US District Judge Paula Xinis, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, gave the Trump administration until Monday to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Abrego Garcia, 29, was apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Maryland last month and subsequently deported to El Salvador’s hellish Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
The Trump administration, however, acknowledged in a court filing that Abrego Garcia “was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error.”
A judge had granted Abrego Garcia protection from deportation in 2019 after he filed a petition for asylum, despite him entering the country illegally in 2011.
The Trump administration had argued that regardless of the error, the court does not have jurisdiction to order his return to the US since Abrego Garcia is now in Salvadoran custody.
The Department of Homeland Security maintains that Abrego Garcia should remain behind bars, whether it be in El Salvador or the US, due to his purported gang ties.
Abrego Garcia is a “member of the brutal MS-13 gang,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said earlier this week, adding that the agency has “intelligence reports that he is involved in human trafficking.”
A confidential informant alleged in 2019 that Abrego Garcia was a member of an MS-13 chapter in New York, but his attorneys insist that there is no evidence to support the claim, noting that their client has never lived in the Empire State.
“To all the wives, mothers, children who also face this cruel separation, I stand with you in this bond of pain,” Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Abrego Garcia, told her supporters at a rally in Hyattsville, Md. “It’s a journey that no one ever should ever have to suffer, a nightmare that feels endless.”
“If I had all the money in the world, I would spend it all just to buy one thing: a phone call to hear Kilmar’s voice again,” Vasquez Sura added. “Kilmar, if you can hear me, I miss you so much, and I’m doing the best to fight for you and our children.”
