The Trump administration has admitted to mistakenly deporting a father to El Salvador’s infamous mega prison, and claims it is unable to bring him back into the US.
Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia was granted protected status by a US immigration judge in 2019 and was living in Maryland. On March 12, as he picked up his son after work, Abrego Garcia’s car was stopped by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who told him his protected status had changed.
Three days later, Abrego Garcia was one of more 200 alleged members of Salvadoran and Venezuelan gangs that the Trump administration deported by plane to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
ICE declared it removed Abrego Garcia ‘due to his prominent role in MS-13’. Meanwhile, his attorneys said he is not linked in any way to the gang, and that he originally fled his home country to escape gang violence.
But in a court filing on Monday, lawyers with the US government acknowledged that deporting Abrego Garcia had been a mistake.
‘Although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,’ wrote the government in the filing obtained by The Atlantic.
Since the dad is in Salvadoran custody, Trump administration lawyers said they are not able to get him back.
‘Oopsie… Too late,’ wrote Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on X (formerly Twitter) on the morning of March 16.
Asked about the court filing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday acknowledged the mistake, but claimed without evidence that Abrego Garcia has ties to MS-13.
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‘The error that you are referring to was a clerical error. It was an administrative error,’ said Leavitt.
‘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.’
Questioned about the evidence, Leavitt insisted: ‘There’s a lot of evidence, and the Department of Homeland Security and ICE have that evidence, and I saw it this morning.’
Abrego Garcia’s case appears to be the first time the administration has conceded to accidentally deporting someone with the right to stay in the US, after President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 allowing him to remove people from the country during war times.
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