In a court filing on Monday, the Trump administration acknowledged that it had deported a father from Maryland to El Salvador “due to an administrative error,” but claimed it was unable to bring him back since he was now in Salvadoran custody.
The petition is related to a complaint over the removal of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was prohibited from being sent to El Salvador by the federal government after being granted protected status by an immigration judge in 2019.
According to The Atlantic, the petition seems to be the first time the government has acknowledged a mistake about its recent deportation flights to El Salvador, which are currently the subject of a contentious legal dispute.
“On March 15, although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” the Trump administration brief claims.
In a picture of inmates arriving at CECOT, the nation’s infamous mega jail, Abrego Garcia was recognized by his wife. Lawyers claim that he left gang violence in El Salvador over ten years ago.
He had been apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in mid-March “because of his prominent role in MS-13,” a senior ICE official stated in a court filing before to his removal.
He is neither affiliated with nor a member of the MS-13 gang, according to his lawyers.
In reference to federal immigration law, acting ICE field office director Robert Cerna stated in his declaration that “Abrego-Garcia was not on the initial manifest of the Title 8 flight to be removed to El Salvador.” He was an alternate instead.
He went up the list and was given the flight as others were sent off for different reasons. Abrego-Garcia’s removal was not recommended by the manifest.
“Through administrative error, Abrego-Garcia was removed from the United States to El Salvador. 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,” according to the declaration.
The administration dispelled fears that Abrego Garcia would be tortured or killed at CECOT by claiming that it cannot bring him back because he is in Salvadoran custody.
Around 2011, Abrego Garcia entered the United States illegally. According to court filings, he had a run-in with the law in 2019 when he was hanging around outside a Home Depot in Maryland with a group of males when local police approached them.
According to a court document, “he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie” and “a confidential informant advised that he was an active member of MS-13 with the Westerns clique,” which led the Prince George’s County Police Department to declare him a gang member.
According to his lawyer, who has stated in court filings that Abrego Garcia is neither a member of nor associated with MS-13, attempts to obtain additional information from police during his 2019 immigration procedures were unsuccessful.
Abrego Garcia was charged with traffic infractions, but he denied any association with MS-13, according to documents from the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review from 2019.
Abrego Garcia was eventually awarded withholding of removal by an immigration judge, which means that if he were sent from the United States to El Salvador, he may face persecution. He was still regarded as detachable; El Salvador was just not an option.
According to court documents, he was taken into custody on March 12 after finishing a shift at a construction site.
According to the paperwork, Abrego Garcia last communicated with his wife on the morning of the deportation flights. She later recognized him in images made public by the Salvadoran authorities after he vanished from the ICE locating system.
While acknowledging the administrative error that resulted in Abrego Garcia’s deportation, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated on Tuesday that he “was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang” without offering any supporting documentation. He was an MS-13 “leader,” she subsequently claimed.
Leavitt responded, “There’s a lot of evidence, and the Department of Homeland Security and ICE have that evidence, and I saw it this morning,” when asked to substantiate his assertion.
“A family nightmare,” the wife remarks.
In an affidavit, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, Abrego Garcia’s wife, indicated that his family is heartbroken by his incarceration.
Together, the 29-year-old pair has one child, and Vasquez Sura’s former relationship had two children. According to Vasquez Sura, a US citizen who was born in Virginia, every child has unique needs.
In 2019, when Abrego Garcia was in custody but before a judge awarded him special status, the couple got married.
Vasquez Sura said that the family “really believed that the false accusations had been cleared up and that they were behind us” when Abrego Garcia was given that status and released with guarantees he wouldn’t be subject to deportation procedures.
Abrego Garcia called his wife on March 12 to inform her that he was being pulled over. He was in the car with their son.
According to Vasquez Sura, a Department of Homeland Security officer called and threatened to contact Child Protective Services if she didn’t pick up her son within ten minutes.
Following her arrival, Vasquez Sura said in the affidavit that she was informed by officers that her husband’s “immigration status had changed” and that they were taking him away. She bid farewell to her weeping spouse and put her wailing infant in a car seat.
According to Vasquez Sura, their autistic kid “has been very distressed since Kilmar has been gone.” He expresses to me how much he misses Kilmar despite his inability to talk.
In order to smell Kilmar’s recognizable scent, he has been looking for and sniffing his work clothing. Since Kilmar’s arrest, he has been sobbing and acting out more than normal.
In the March 24 filing, she stated that she hadn’t heard from her spouse since March 15. He said he was being deported to CECOT and sounded terrified. Later, she identified her husband’s traits in images of CECOT inmates.
In his affidavit, Vasquez Sura stated, “This has been a nightmare for my family.My faith in God carries me, but I am exhausted and heartbroken. My children need their father.”
She wrote, “I need to know when my husband is coming home.”
This information has been sourced from CNN.
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