Kilmar Abrego Garcia Deportation
🔴 Abuse of Power ·
Mar 15, 2025
Summary
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who had lived in Maryland since 2011, held a 2019 grant of withholding of removal in which an immigration judge barred his deportation to El Salvador. On March 15, 2025, ICE detained him as he left work and, despite that order, removed him to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). The DOJ later conceded in a court filing that his removal was ‘an administrative error.’ The administration nonetheless maintained that Abrego Garcia belonged to MS-13, an allegation that rested on a 2019 confidential informant, that he and his family denied, and for which no criminal charge had been brought. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the government to facilitate his return, and on April 10, 2025, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the order to ‘facilitate’ his release and described the removal as illegal, while returning to the lower court the question of the executive’s authority over foreign affairs. The administration resisted for months, with Trump describing Abrego Garcia as a violent criminal and El Salvador’s president declining to return him, the government arguing it could not compel a foreign sovereign. Abrego Garcia was brought back on June 6, 2025, and immediately charged in Tennessee with human smuggling, based on a 2022 traffic stop for speeding in which he was driving nine passengers and was not charged at the time. His attorneys called the prosecution vindictive, noting that the closed 2022 investigation was reopened only after he secured his return, and in 2026 a federal judge dismissed the charges, finding the timing showed a retaliatory motive.
Key Figures
Donald Trump, Kilmar Abrego Garcia
Institutions Involved
Sources
- Supreme Court on Application to Vacate Injunction
- US Supreme Court tells Trump administration to facilitate return of Salvadoran man deported in error
- Timeline - Wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador