ICE Sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador Despite Protected Status and Court Order Not to Send Him There

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement shipped Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador despite being aware an immigration judge in 2019 granted him “withholding of removal” protected status and specified he must not be returned to El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia went to the USA from El Salvador in 2011. The judge found him likely to be subject to persecution and torture by gangs if sent back there. If he was ultimately expelled from the USA, it had to be to a country other than El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia married an American citizen. They have 5-year-old child with special needs in Maryland. Abrego Garcia’s wife has two other children from a previous relationship and who live with them in Maryland.

In court about his rendition under the Alien Enemies Act to the only country to which a previous judge had ruled he must not be sent, Department of Justice lawyers said he was sent to the CECOT prison in El Salvador on one of three flights 15 March 2025 due to an “administrative error.” They said the USA cannot get him back even though Salvadoran dictator Nayib Bukele and President Donald Trump have a close relationship.

When asked about the case, both White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Vice President J.D. Vance responded by accusing Abrego Garcia of not just being in the notorious MS-13 gang, but also of being a criminal despite his clean record in the USA without so much as a traffic ticket. When reporters asked them what evidence led them to these claims that had not been presented to the court, they both responded by verbally attacking the journalists.

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