 "Salvadoran prison guards escort alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and the MS-13 gang recently deported by the U.S. government to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, as part of an agreement with the Salvadoran government, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, in this handout image obtained March 31, 2025. File image/ Reuters")
A US court decided on Friday that the Trump administration must return a Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador to the United States within three days, the latest legal setback for the administration’s strict deportation policy.
The United States has previously recognised that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant with a work visa, was mistakenly deported as one of three planeloads of migrants flown out last month due to claimed links to violent gangs.
However, the administration claims it lacks legal authorisation to bring him back to the nation, which Abrego Garcia’s attorneys dispute.
“They put him there, they can bring him back,” Andrew Rossman, lawyer at prominent law firm Quinn Emanuel that joined Abrego Garcia’s legal team on Friday, said in a statement.
After grilling government attorneys, US District Judge Paula Xinis decided during a court hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, that the government must take action to return him to the United States by April 7.
According to a court document issued during the hearing, the Justice Department will appeal the ruling to the 4th United States Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond.
In a statement, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated Xinis should contact El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele “because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador.”
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More ShortsAt the hearing, Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, informed the judge that the deportation had no legal foundation.
“They admit they had no legal authorization to remove him to El Salvador,” Moshenberg said. “The public interest lies in the government following the law.”
Erez Reuveni, a lawyer for the government, conceded that Abrego Garcia should not have been removed.
“That is not in dispute,” Reuveni said.
In an unusual exchange, Xinis grilled Reuveni on why the US couldn’t get Abrego Garcia back - to which Reuveni said he had asked US government officials that question without getting a satisfactory answer himself.
“The absence of evidence speaks for itself,” Reuveni said.
The case is the latest flashpoint in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, which has raised constitutional questions and drawn the rebuke of a judge in Washington who is weighing whether US officials violated a court order temporarily blocking the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members under an 18th-century law.
Trump on March 15 invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to rapidly deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The administration said it sent two flights to El Salvador that day carrying deportees processed under the rarely used wartime statute and a third flight carrying people deported under other rules.
Abrego Garcia was wrongfully placed on the third flight despite an October 2019 judicial order granting him protection from deportation, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement official has said in a court filing.
Abrego Garcia was stopped and detained by ICE officers on March 12 and questioned about his alleged gang affiliation. The government asserted in his earlier immigration dispute in 2019 that Abrego Garcia was a member of the gang MS-13, which he has denied.
His lawyers, who also represent his wife and five-year-old child in the US, in a court filing said the US had failed to take any voluntary steps “to rectify what they themselves describe as an error.” Abrego Garcia’s wife, who attended Friday’s hearing, and child are US citizens.
The Trump administration has also sent military troops to the US border and reassigned federal agents to focus on immigration enforcement amid ramped up arrests and deportation efforts.