MD Man Deported To El Salvador Due To 'Administrative Error'

PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, MD — A Maryland man with protected legal status was mistakenly deported to El Salvador due to an "administrative error," the Trump administration said in court documents filed Monday. Now, the federal government is claiming that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to return him to the country.

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a resident of Beltsville and a citizen of El Salvador, was among hundreds of alleged gang members expelled from the United States on March 15 after President Donald Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority that allows the president broader leeway on policy and executive action to speed up mass deportations.

Despite his deportation, Abrego Garcia had been granted a withholding of removal in 2019, meaning he could not be removed from the country.

In a sworn statement filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland, Robert Cerna, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s acting field office director for enforcement and removal operations, called Abrego Garcia's removal "an error."

"Through administrative error, Abrego Garcia was removed from the United States
to El Salvador," Cerna wrote. "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."

The court filing was first reported by The Atlantic.

Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, and his 5-year-old child, both of whom are U.S. citizens, filed a lawsuit on March 24 calling for his return.

According to the lawsuit, Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador when he was 16 years old to escape gang violence. He was arrested in March 2019 while soliciting work outside a Home Depot, and he was later ordered deported after a confidential informant told police he was a member of the MS-13 gang.

Abrego Garcia appealed the claim and was eventually granted “withholding from removal” status in October 2019 by an immigration judge, according to court documents.

On March 12, Abrego Garcia was pulled over by ICE officers after picking up his son from daycare. The officer told Abrego Garcia that his "status had changed" before placing him in handcuffs and detaining him, according to court documents. The officer also said Abrego Garcia's wife had 10 minutes to get their son or else he would be handed over to Child Protective Services, the lawsuit states.

Three days later, Abrego Garcia was taken to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, according to court documents, which activists say is rife with abuses and where inmates are packed into cells and never allowed outside.

In Monday's court filing, Trump administration officials waved off the lawsuit, claiming that U.S. courts did not have jurisdiction to order Abrego Garcia's return. Vice President JD Vance also defended the deportation, calling Abrego Garcia a "convicted MS-13 gang member."

A Maryland court record search by Patch did not find any criminal cases linked to Abrego Garcia’s name.

"Abrego Garcia is not a member of or has no affiliation with Tren de Aragua, MS-13, or any other criminal or street gang," his attorneys wrote in his family's lawsuit. "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."

In a joint statement released Tuesday, U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks, both Democrats of Maryland, urged the Trump administration to take "immediate action to right this wrong."

“In court yesterday, the Trump Administration admitted that a Maryland father with protected status was deported due to an administrative error. That is unacceptable," the senators said. "This incident underscores the Administration’s complete disregard for due process rights as they pursue their indiscriminate mass deportation policy."