Who Is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Man Deported to El Salvador Prison Due to ‘Administrative Error’?
President Donald Trump, center, greets El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, right, as Bukele arrives at the White House, Monday, April 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Update (April 14): In a visit to The White House, President Nayib Bukele weighed in on the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States during a meeting with President Donald Trump. When asked if he would return the man deported due to an “administrative error” he said, “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.” Bukele also said he wouldn’t release the “terrorist” in El Salvador. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland has requested a meeting with Bukele for the immediate release of Garcia.
The U.S. government accidentally deported a Salvadoran man back to his country due to what is now categorized as an “administrative error.” Kilmar Abrego Garcia is currently in a notorious megajail in the Central American nation and remains in legal limbo, according to legal filings. But who is this man, and how did he end up in this situation?
Kilmar Abrego Garcia arrived in the United States from El Salvador in 2011 and is a legal resident of the U.S. thanks to a 201 court order that barred him from being sent back to his home country. Despite that court order, the government admitted on court papers filed on Monday, March 31st, that “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.”
Abrego Garcia lives in Maryland with his wife Jennifer and their three children. Both parents work full-time, and he was arrested while picking up two of his children. According to the lawsuit, he was also told that his wife had 10 minutes to collect the son that was with him when he was stopped or the child would be handed over to Child Protective Services. And his wife was only to identify him and figure out his location after she recognized his tattoos in a photo of detainees in El Salvador.
Vice President JD Vance spoke about the case on X, referring to Abrego Garcia on X as a “convicted MS-13 gang member.” The White House Press Secretary also repeated these allegations.
However, Abrego Garcia has no criminal convictions in the United States or El Salvador and the only evidence being allegations from a confidential informant. Vance also mistakenly called Abrego Garcia “an illegal immigrant with no right to be in our country,” despite the “withholding of removal” protection order he obtained in 2019 to prevent his removal from the United States after proving “he was likely to suffer persecution due to race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group or political opinion.“
“But defendants found those legal procedures bothersome, so they merely ignored them and deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador anyway, ripping him away from his U.S.-citizen wife and his disabled U.S.-citizen child,” his lawyers allege in the lawsuit. Abrego Garcia is being by represented by Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation comes amid an immigration crackdown from the Trump administration, with hundreds of people being deported to El Salvador, many of them from Venezuela. Almost all of the people being deported are reportedly being sent to the maximum security prison known as CECOT (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo).