48°
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who lived in Maryland with his wife and 5-year-old child, was taken into ICE custody in March and deported just days later, federal officials said in a new court filing on Monday, March 31.
His family says he should never have been removed in the first place.
Abrego Garcia had previously been granted withholding of removal by an immigration judge back in 2019—meaning the government was barred from deporting him to El Salvador due to safety concerns, according to court documents.
But on March 15, the federal government sent him there anyway, calling it an “administrative error,” according to the filing.
Now, his wife—who lives and works full-time in Maryland—is demanding that officials take steps to remove him from the prison and bring him home.
She says he’s being held at CECOT, the country’s largest prison, known for housing tens of thousands of alleged gang members.
She identified him in a news photo from the prison’s intake line by his tattoos and scars, according to the court documents.
The family wants a judge to issue an emergency order forcing the US government to stop paying El Salvador to detain him and to immediately bring him back into federal custody.
But the feds say it’s not that simple.
“The United States does not have custody over Abrego Garcia,” the government argued.
"They acknowledge that there may be 'difficult questions of redressability' in this case, reflecting their recognition that (they) do not have 'the power to produce' Abrego Garcia from CECOT in El Salvador."
“They ask the Court to order Defendants to ‘request that the government of El Salvador return Plaintiff to Defendants’ custody.’ This is not ‘custody’ to which the great writ may run.”
“There is no clear showing that Abrego Garcia himself is likely to be tortured or killed in CECOT,” prosecutors wrote, adding that any US payments to the Salvadoran government are unrelated to his specific case.
Officials also say Garcia was previously denied bond after ICE claimed he was a known member of MS-13, and a judge later agreed he was “a danger to the community.”
He appealed and lost.
Vice President JD Vance doubled down on social media to defend the government's actions.
"My comment is that according to the court document you apparently didn’t read he was a convicted MS-13 gang member with no legal right to be here," he posted.
"My further comment is that it’s gross to get fired up about gang members getting deported while ignoring citizens they victimize."
According to Vance, an immigration judge under the first Trump administration determined that the deported man was a member of MS-13.
He further alleges that "He also apparently had multiple traffic violations for which he failed to appear in court. A real winner."
"It is telling that the entire American media is going to run a propaganda operation today making you think an innocent 'father of 3' was apprehended by a gulag," he continued in a second post.
As of now, Abrego Garcia remains in El Salvador, and his case is pending in federal court in Greenbelt.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Lititz and receive free news updates.
