Judge orders return of Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador

The United States must retrieve Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident with protected legal status, from a prison in El Salvador, a federal judge ruled on Friday. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, deported Abrego Garcia last month due to alleged MS-13 gang ties. The agency did so despite a 2019 immigration court ruling that held Abrego Garcia could not be deported to his native El Salvador because gangs would likely harm him, the Associated Press reported. In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis called his deportation unlawful.

ICE officials in a Monday court filing admitted they’d made an administrative error in deporting him. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday maintained that Abrego Garcia was an MS-13 leader and would not be returned to the United States.

Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia? Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador around 2011 to escape persecution from local gangs. He married a U.S. citizen and was raising three children. He received a license to work legally in the United States and was apprenticing as a sheet metal worker. There is no evidence Abrego Garcia had any relationship with MS-13, his attorney told the Associated Press.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report on the arrest of an MS-13 leader in New York.