Saturday April 5, 2025
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported last month along with hundreds of alleged gang members. SUPPLIED via Jennifer Vasquez
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn (HOL) — A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to return a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador, citing an “illegal act” that violated a 2019 court order protecting him from removal and criticizing government lawyers for failing to justify the deportation.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ruled Friday that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national with legal work authorization in the United States, must be returned by April 7. The ruling follows what Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged was an “administrative error” that resulted in his deportation to a notorious Salvadoran prison despite a binding immigration court decision prohibiting such action.
“From the moment he was seized, it was unconstitutional,” Xinis said during a hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland. “There is no basis to have seized him in the first place.”
Abrego Garcia, 29, was arrested by ICE agents on March 12 while driving with his 5-year-old son—who has autism—and was deported just days later. His 2019 immigration case had concluded with a judge granting him withholding of removal—a protection afforded to noncitizens who can demonstrate they would likely face persecution or torture if deported. ICE did not appeal that decision.
His family—including his U.S. citizen wife and three children—have not spoken to him since his removal.
“In a blink of an eye, our children lost their father,” said his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, during a press conference at CASA’s Multicultural Center in Hyattsville, Maryland. “Our entire family is broken by this error.”
Following public outcry, federal officials doubled down on their claim that Abrego Garcia is affiliated with MS-13, citing a confidential informant and a local police report from a 2019 incident where he was detained outside a Home Depot in Maryland. The evidence reportedly included a Chicago Bulls hoodie and allegations from an informant that Abrego Garcia belonged to an MS-13 clique in New York—even though he has never lived there.
His attorneys maintain that the government has never presented credible evidence supporting the gang affiliation. Abrego Garcia has no criminal record in either the United States or El Salvador, and he has complied with all legal check-ins since 2019.
“They’re coming before this court and saying, ‘we’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of options,'” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego Garcia’s lawyers. “There are plenty of things they could have done legally. They did none of them. They just put him on a plane.”
Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, said her son has been struggling with his father’s absence. “He has been finding Kilmar’s work shirts and smelling them to feel close to him,” she said during a recent press conference. She identified her husband in photos and videos released by El Salvador’s government, which showed him shackled and being led by guards in the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.
In this photo provided by El Salvador’s presidential press office, a prison guard transfers deportees from the U.S., alleged to be Venezuelan gang members, to the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, Sunday, March 16, 2025.(El Salvador presidential press office via AP)
The facility, which holds accused gang members, including those deported under a recent U.S. campaign against the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, has been widely condemned for human rights abuses, including overcrowding, inhumane conditions, and indefinite detention without trial.
According to court records, Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador in 2011 after being targeted by the gang Barrio 18, which extorted his family’s pupusa business and threatened to kill him. His father is a former police officer. After arriving in the U.S., Abrego Garcia married Vasquez and worked as a sheet metal apprentice while pursuing a journeyman’s license at the University of Maryland.
Despite acknowledging the error, the Trump administration has refused to initiate steps to bring Abrego Garcia back, arguing that U.S. courts have no authority to compel diplomatic action or demand cooperation from a foreign sovereign. The government has said it will appeal the order to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to suspend Judge Xinis’ order. In court filings, Government lawyers likened the court’s order to “forcing the end of the war in Ukraine.”
Legal experts noted that the court’s ability to enforce such an order is limited, as Abrego Garcia is not a U.S. citizen and is currently outside the country. However, critics argue that failing to comply undermines judicial authority and due process protections.
“This case highlights a dangerous precedent,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University. “Who’s to say they won’t deport someone else who has legal permission to live in the United States?”
The U.S. government is reportedly paying El Salvador approximately $6 million to detain deportees like Abrego Garcia as part of a broader crackdown that has included mass removals of alleged gang members. Many of those deported have never been formally charged or convicted of crimes and were removed without the opportunity to challenge their designation in court.
Abrego Garcia’s deportation occurred alongside mass removals of Venezuelan migrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798—a wartime statute last invoked during World War II. Though Abrego Garcia was not deported under that law, his case highlights growing concerns that the administration is relying on exceptional powers to bypass traditional legal safeguards.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled that deportations under the Alien Enemies Act likely violated due process. He barred further removals until courts could hear the affected individuals’ claims. Legal observers warn that these actions suggest a broader erosion of constitutional protections.
As of Saturday, the 4th Circuit has asked Abrego Garcia’s legal team to respond to the government’s appeal. The clock is ticking ahead of the court-ordered deadline.
