Washington Deports A Salvadoran Citizen Due to an ‘Administrative Error’

A maximum security prision in El Salvador, 2025. X/ @MarioNawfal

April 1, 2025 Hour: 2:56 pm

Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wife identified him in photos published by the Salvadoran government.

In a court filing released on Monday, the administration of President Donald Trump acknowledged that it deported a Salvadoran citizen residing in Maryland to El Salvador due to an “administrative error.”

In 2019, a U.S. immigration judge granted Kilmar Abrego Garcia protected status, which prohibited the federal government from sending him back to his country. His attorneys explained that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested him in mid-March. According to a court statement by a senior ICE official, he was detained for “his prominent role in MS-13” gang, a claim his lawyers deny.

“On March 15, although ICE was aware of his protection against deportation to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was deported due to an administrative error,” states the Trump administration’s filing, admitting for the first time that it made a mistake in its recent deportation flights to the Central American country.

Acting ICE Director Robert Cerna explained that Abrego Garcia was not on the initial flight manifest. However, after some changes to the list, he was included in the flight without the manifest indicating that he should not be deported.

“Due to an administrative error, Abrego Garcia was deported from the United States to El Salvador. This was an oversight, and the deportation was carried out in good faith, based on the existence of a final deportation order and Abrego Garcia’s alleged membership in MS-13,” the court statement reads.

Press Secretary SHUTS DOWN fake news hoax that Trump deported an innocent Maryland father:

FACT 1: The individual was a member of the vicious MS-13 gang which Trump designated a foreign terrorist organization

FACT 2: He was involved in human trafficking

FACT 3: Foreign… pic.twitter.com/6BOKZTya1v
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) April 1, 2025

On Tuesday, U.S. Vice President James David Vance defended Abrego Garcia’s deportation. “In 2019, an immigration judge determined that the deported man was, in fact, a member of the MS-13 gang. He also apparently had multiple traffic violations for which he failed to appear in court. A real winner,” he said.

“All U.S. media outlets are launching a propaganda operation today to make us believe that an innocent ‘father of three’ was detained in a gulag,” Vance added, disregarding the error that the U.S. bureaucracy itself had acknowledged.

Abrego Garcia illegally crossed into the U.S. around 2011, fleeing gang-related violence in El Salvador. In 2019, local police detained him along with a group of men outside a Home Depot in Maryland. The Prince George’s County Police Department considered him a gang member because “he was wearing a Chicago Bulls cap and hoodie.”

Efforts to obtain more information from the police during his 2019 immigration proceedings were unsuccessful, according to his attorney. Official documents reiterate that the Salvadoran man is neither a member nor affiliated with MS-13. Additionally, records from the Department of Justice’s Office for Immigration Review from 2019 indicate that Abrego Garcia had only been charged with traffic offenses.

Police arrested Abrego Garcia on March 12 after he finished his shift at a construction site. His wife last spoke with him on the morning of the deportation flights, after which he disappeared from ICE’s tracking system. Later, Abrego Garcia’s wife identified him in photos published by the Salvadoran government.