Madeline Halpert
BBC News
Getty Images
A Maryland judge is demanding the return of a man who President Donald Trump's administration has acknowledged was mistakenly deported to an El Salvador mega-prison.
Last month, the Trump administration sent Kilmar Ábrego García to a notorious mega-jail in the Central American country along with more than 260 Venezuelans and Salvadorans, who officials were gang members.
He was then moved to another prison in the country which has better conditions, according to Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, who met Mr Ábrego García.
The Supreme Court last week partially backed Judge Paula Xinis's order requiring officials to "facilitate" the Salvadoran national's release, after the government conceded his deportation was an "administrative error".
Trump officials have continued to push back against the order, and El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele said this week he would not let Mr Ábrego García return to the US.
Who is Mr Ábrego García?
Mr Ábrego García, 29, came to the US from El Salvador illegally around 2011.
In 2019, he was arrested with three other men in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities.
An immigration judge granted him protection from deportation on the grounds that he might be at risk of persecution from gangs in his home country.
Mr Ábrego García was living with his wife and child under this protected legal status in Maryland until he was deported on 15 March.
In 2021 his US citizen wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, filed a restraining order against her husband, alleging he punched and scratched her and ripped off her shirt.
But she has told US media the couple resolved the situation, including by counselling.
What has the government said?
The Trump administration has said Mr Ábrego García's deportation to El Salvador was an "administrative error", but they have also alleged he has ties to the MS-13 gang, a group it designates as a foreign terrorist organisation.
Judge Xinis has said Mr Ábrego García has no criminal record in the US or El Salvador, and has called the gang ties "a singular unsubstantiated allegation".
She is requesting daily updates from the government on what steps they are taking to bring him back to the US from El Salvador.
On Thursday, yet another court ruled against an appeal from the Trump administration. In its judgement, the three-judge 4th Circuit Court of Appeals panel said the government was "asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order".
Mr Ábrego García has not been charged with gang activities.
Visiting Trump on Monday, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, a Trump ally, claimed he did not have the power to return Mr Ábrego García.
Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen travelled to El Salvador to meet Mr Ábrego García and advocate for his release.
He said Mr Ábrego García had been moved from Cecot (Terrorism Confinement Centre) - where he was kept in a cell with 25 other inmates - to a new prison with better conditions in Santa Ana, El Salvador.
His time in Cecot left him "traumatised", according to Van Hollen.
Was Ábrego García a gang member?
The Trump administration alleges that Mr Ábrego García is a "verified" member of the violent El Salvador gang MS-13.
Mr Ábrego Garcia was arrested outside a Home Depot in Maryland while looking for work in 2019. The allegations against him cited by the Trump administration appear to stem from two documents that were filed by the government during that case.
Officials argued that Mr Ábrego García was a member of an MS-13 gang in New York based on his clothes - which included Chicago Bulls merchandise - and the word of an unknown informant.
His attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg rebuffed those claims and has questioned how Mr Ábrego García's clothes could prove gang affiliation.
The lawyer has also cast doubt on the reliability of the unidentified informant. He said Mr Ábrego García has not lived in New York.
On Wednesday, White House press secretary said the El Salvador national was wearing "a sweatshirt with rolls of money covering the ears, mouth and eyes of presidents", which she said is a "known MS-13 gang symbol".
She said he was arrested alongside two other members of the gang, and that "two separate judges found Ábrego García was a member of MS-13".
US immigration
Donald Trump
Maryland
United States
