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Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador who came to the United States in 2011, when he was around 16 years old. He has never been convicted of any crime. Abrego Garcia is married to Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a United States citizen, and the couple was living in Maryland with their five-year-old son.
In 2019, Abrego Garcia appeared before an immigration court and asked for "withholding of removal," preventing his deportation to El Salvador. Abrego Garcia presented evidence that, in El Salvador, the "Barrio 18 gang was targeting him and threatening him because of his family's pupusa business" and, on several occasions, "threatened to kill" him. The immigration judge found the evidence presented by Abrego Garcia credible and that he has a "well-founded fear of future persecution."
The judge granted his request for "withholding of removal" to El Salvador. The ruling only protects Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador. He could still be legally deported to any other country. The government did not appeal the decision.
On March 12, 2025, Abrego Garcia was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers "after completing a shift as a sheet metal worker apprentice at a new job site in Baltimore." On March 15, 2025, Abrego Garcia called Vasquez Sura from a detention center in Texas and informed her that he was being deported to El Salvador. A few days later Vasquez Sura saw "a video where Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was frogwalked through" a notorious Salvadoran prison.
In a legal memorandum filed on Monday, lawyers for the Trump administration said Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador by mistake. According to the filing, "[o]n 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 lawyers argue, however, that the error is not "redressable" because the United States cannot force El Salvador to send Abrego Garcia back.
Top members of the Trump administration then spent Tuesday claiming that Abrego Garcia's deportation was not a mistake and was fully justified. On X, Vice President JD Vance claimed that Abrego Garcia "was a convicted MS-13 gang member."
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This is a lie. Abrego Garcia was never "convicted" of being an MS-13 gang member. On March 28, 2019, Abrego Garcia was arrested in the parking lot of a Home Depot, where he was soliciting employment. He was never charged with any crime. He was then transferred into federal custody, and immigration authorities initiated removal proceedings.
At a bond hearing on April 24, 2019, the government opposed Abrego Garcia's release because they claimed they had "verified" he was a member of the MS-13 gang. The basis for this verification, according to the government, was: 1. Abrego Garcia "was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie," and 2. "[A] confidential informant advised that he was an active member of MS-13 with the Westerns clique." Notably, the "Westerns clique," according to the Department of Justice, operates in Long Island, New York, a state where Abrego Garcia has never lived. Nevertheless, the judge denied Abrego Garcia's request for bond. But that denial was not based on any evidence that would be admissible in court. Nor is it relevant to the "withholding of removal" that Abrego Garcia was granted.
Vance went on to claim that "whatever 'due process' [Abrego Garcia] was entitled to, he received." This is also false. Abrego Garcia had a valid "withholding of removal" that prevented his deportation to El Salvador. There is a process the Trump administration could have used to try to get the "withholding of removal" reversed. But the Trump administration did not follow that process. It just put Abrego Garcia on a plane.
Nevertheless, the Trump administration continues to defend both Abrego Garcia's deportation and Vance's misinformation. Asked about Vance's claims, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said there was "a lot of evidence" that Abrego Garcia was a "convicted" member of the MS-13 gang and she "saw it this morning."
In the United States, there are no secret criminal convictions. So, if Abrego Garcia were convicted of anything, it would be a matter of public record.
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The administration then decided to escalate its allegations against Abrego Garcia. On X, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, claimed that "we have intelligence reports that he is involved in human trafficking."
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This, of course, is why due process exists. If the government has evidence that Abrego Garcia was involved in human trafficking, it could have arrested and charged him with crimes. Or it could have used the evidence in immigration court to reverse the "withholding of removal" before deporting him to El Salvador. Or it could have sought to deport Abrego Garcia to another country.
Instead, the Trump administration has chosen lawlessness.
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