The US government accidentally deported him to El Salvador due to “administrative errors,” landing him in the infamous Megajail, leaving him stuck there to legal sphere, according to legal documents filed Monday.
Kilmar Arbrego Garcia came to the United States from El Salvador in 2011 and is a legal resident protected by a 2019 court order that prevented him from being sent back to his home country.
However, court documents filed Monday admitted that the government “recognised protections from removal to El Salvador on March 15th, but Abrego Garcia was removed by El Salvador due to administrative errors.”
Garcia lives in Maryland with his wife, an autistic and intellectually disabled person and a five-year-old child. The couple both work full time, Filing said. NBC4 Washington first reported deportation, and the Atlantic first reported “administrative errors.”
Garcia’s deportation is often tied to the largest security “terrorist confinement center,” known almost all by the Spanish acronym Cecot, as President Donald Trump’s administration continues to deport hundreds of people to El Salvador, many of them from Venezuela, almost all of which are known by the Spanish acronym Cecot.
The deportation appears to coincide with the departure of three plane roads of the people on March 15th to El Salvador. Some lawyers of those deported said they were falsely accused of gang affiliation due to tattoos.
Garcia, his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sula and their legal team filed a lawsuit last week in the US District Court in Maryland, asking Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem to make sure he returns to the US and stop the government from putting him in prison and paying him.
The government said in its filing Monday that the US courts have no jurisdiction for him to be released.
Images of the Salvador government show a crowd of men marching their heads shaved by hidden security guards inside Latin America’s largest prison.
To her shock, Garcia’s wife learns that her husband is in custody after finding him in a news article in which her husband shaved his head and wore white overalls, the lawsuit says. The man was on his knees and their faces were unclear, but she said he had found two wounds on his tattoo and his head.
However, the government claims that Garcia was “an active member of MS-13 for crime crimes” citing an unidentified informant at a 2019 bond hearing.
Garcia’s lawyers vehemently deny this, claiming that the government has “never produced any IOTA evidence in support of this unfounded allegation.” Garcia left El Salvador to escape gang violence, his lawyer says after the gang threatened to kill him in an attempt to force his parents.
They do not deny that they had no legal authority to send him there. ”
Vice President JD Vance put a lot of emphasis on the case, falsely saying on Tuesday that Garcia is a “convicted MS-13 gang member.” Garcia has not been criminally convicted in the United States or El Salvador, his legal team said in the lawsuit.
In a follow-up post on X Tuesday, Vance confronted his comments and called Garcia “an illegal immigrant with no right to be in our country.”
“I disagree that he is a member of the MS-13 gang. The sole basis for his gang membership was a secret informant and there was no harsh evidence,” Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval Moshenberg, said in a statement to NBC News in response to X’s Vance post.
“There’s a judicial process. They might have returned to the judge who gave him a protective order in 2019 and was able to ask the judge to raise that order. They didn’t do that, they just put him on the plane.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also spoke to the lawsuit Tuesday, repeating his claim that he is a member of MS-13.
On March 12, after completing her shift as a sheet metal worker and welcoming her child, Garcia was handed over and arrested by a homeland security agent.
Ice officers reportedly told him that his wife must either gather the couple’s children within 10 minutes or that he must be handed over to child protection services, the filing says.
She arrives and discovers Garcia is “confused, distraught and crying,” but has not been explained about his arrest, the application says.
Garcia was interviewed and repeatedly asked about his gang affiliation, but he told his wife he was scheduled to appear before an immigration judge and was scheduled to be released. He then called her from a Texas detention center and told her he was about to be deported, the filing states.
Garcia’s lawsuit denies several cabinet members named as the Department of Homeland Security, the ICE and the defendants who decided to expel him without following the law, and has the full knowledge that “El Salvador tortures individuals detained in CECOT.”
“Based on information and belief, they intended to know that the Salvadoran government would detain plaintiff Abrego Garcia at CECOT as soon as they arrived,” the lawsuit said.
A court filing by the government on Monday said Garcia’s legal team “doesn’t clearly state the possibility that Abrego Garcia will be tortured or killed in CECOT.”
Last year, human rights group Cristál reported that at least 261 people have died in Salvador prisons since 2022, but groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented extreme crowding and torture in Salvador prisons, including CECOT.
ICE did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
A DHS spokesperson told NBC News in a statement Tuesday. “The individual in question is a member of the brutal MS-13 gang. There are reports of intelligence that he is involved in human trafficking,” he said.
“Whether he is in El Salvador or in a US detention facility, he should be locked up,” the spokesman added. “It’s worth noting that the Atlantic and other MSMs continue to bid on these vicious gangs and ignore the victims.”
The case is scheduled to be heard by a judge in Greenbelt, Maryland on Friday.
