Kilmar Abrego Garcia was not supposed to be deported. The 33-year-old father had lived in the United States since he was a child. He had fled El Salvador at age 16 after gang members threatened his life and, in 2019, was granted protection under “withholding of removal” by a U.S. immigration judge, a legal status that explicitly bars deportation due to fear of persecution.
Now, Abrego Garcia is imprisoned in El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a mega-prison used by President Nayib Bukele to house thousands of accused gang members, often without due process. He hasn’t been heard from since.
According to an investigation by The Atlantic, the Trump administration has admitted Abrego Garcia’s deportation was a so-called “administrative error.” The mistake occurred during a mass operation targeting MS-13 and other gangs—Abrego Garcia was wrongly flagged despite having no criminal record and no gang affiliation. He was not allowed to contact a lawyer. He was not allowed to contact his family.
The administration’s current position? That the courts are powerless to fix it. In recent filings, U.S. government attorneys have argued that because Abrego Garcia is now in foreign custody, the judiciary has no authority to order his return—even though the deportation itself violated federal law.
“This is a travesty,” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia’s attorney. “Kilmar had legal status. He followed every rule. He did everything right. And the U.S. government sent him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the world without cause.”
CECOT, the prison where Abrego Garcia is being held, has been described by human rights groups as a black site. It holds more than 40,000 men accused of gang affiliations, often detained without formal charges or trials. Conditions are dire. Physical abuse is rampant. Medical care is nonexistent. There is no record of Abrego Garcia being formally processed. He may not even be listed.
Family members in Maryland have tried desperately to make contact but have received no information about his health, status, or location. Advocacy organizations are demanding that the U.S. government intervene immediately to secure his release. So far, the Trump administration has refused.
“They say it’s out of their hands. But it’s not. They put him on that plane,” said one advocate from the National Immigration Justice Center. “They chose to break the law, and now they pretend their hands are tied.”
The case raises broader alarms about the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation agenda—and what happens when innocent people get swept up in its machinery. With immigration courts sidelined, legal safeguards discarded, and the executive branch empowered to act unilaterally, Abrego Garcia’s story is no longer an outlier. It is a warning.
