Trump Administration Admits ‘Error’ For Man’s Deportation To El Salvador Prison

Despite the mistake, officials said Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia can't be brought back since he is no longer in U.S. custody.

The Trump administration has admitted that it mistakenly sent a Salvadoran immigrant to a supermax El Salvador prison despite the man having a U.S. court order that prevented him from being sent there due to fear of persecution.

Justice Department officials in a federal court filing Monday, dismissed Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s removal to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison as an “administrative error.”

“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,” they wrote.

“This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13,” Robert Cerna, an acting field office director with ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, wrote in a separate court filing.

Despite the error, the Trump administration argued that because Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody, the court cannot bring him back due to a lack of jurisdiction. It also argued that his family, which includes his U.S. citizen wife and 5-year-old child in Maryland, “have not clearly shown a likelihood that Abrego Garcia will be tortured or killed in CECOT.”