An 'Administrative Error' Sends a Maryland Father to a Salvadoran Prison

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/an-administrative-error-sends-a-man-to-a-salvadoran-prison/682254/

No paywall link
https://archive.li/JNvjh

The Trump administration acknowledged in a court filing Monday that it had grabbed a Maryland father with protected legal status and mistakenly deported him to El Salvador, but said that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction to order his return from the megaprison where he’s now locked up.

The case appears to be the first time the Trump administration has admitted to errors when it sent three planeloads of Salvadoran and Venezuelan deportees to El Salvador’s grim “Terrorism Confinement Center” on March 15. Attorneys for several Venezuelan deportees have said that the Trump administration falsely labeled their clients as gang members because of their tattoos. Trump officials have disputed those claims.

But in Monday’s court filing, attorneys for the government admitted that the Salvadoran man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was deported accidentally. “Although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” the government told the court. Trump lawyers said the court has no ability to bring him back now that Abrego Garcia is in Salvadoran custody.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia’s attorney, said he’s never seen a case in which the government knowingly deported someone who had already received protected legal status from an immigration judge. He is asking the court to order the Trump administration to ask for Abrego Garcia’s return and, if necessary, to withhold payment to the Salvadoran government, which says it’s charging the United States $6 million a year to jail U.S. deportees.

*snip*

[BOSSHOG]

1. Wow!

You go neighbors who voted for trump. You go straight to hell.

[yellow dahlia]

2. I second that emotion.

[BOSSHOG]

3. Thank You My Friend on two counts

The heartless atrocity perpetrated by monsters

And the awesomeness of the Miracles of 1968.

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

I wonder how long before we hear Kilmar Abrego Garcia is dead.

Because the only reason to send people to El Salvador to be imprisoned is for them to die there. The Trump Regime can claim any deaths are unintentional on their part, but they would be lying.

[haele]

5. Mistake? He fled El Salvador and got protected status.

Someone probably wanted him back.
Yes, he's probably dead, or soon to be. And some f'ing punk gang leader (or government official - or both) is probably boasting about his contact in ICE and how no one is safe from him.

[Solly Mack]

6. Absolutely no mistake, I agree.

[orangecrush]

15. Yup

[tishaLA]

7. Our "meritocracy" at work

The only thing they do well is making money grabs

[Hugin]

8. Straight out of the movie "Brazil"...

The only difference is that the Trumpers aren't trying to charge him for his own deportation... Yet.

All so Noem could have a photo-op at the gravel pit. Disgusting. Deranged. Broken. un-American.

[Buns_of_Fire]

9. So they screwed up, they admit it, and now it looks like they don't

intend to do a damned thing to try to rectify it.

Humane bastards, aren't they? When the time comes, I hope each one of them receives exactly as much mercy as they deserve.

[Bread and Circuses]

10. They can make anyone disappear and they're showing us.

If we do not some heroic action by someone with guts in a few weeks, we’re toast.

I’ve read that more universities are capitulating. Corporations already kissed the ring,

By summer we will be under an authoritarian kleptocracy. The constitution will not matter, if the gangster ignores it.

[elleng]

11. *the Salvadoran man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was deported accidentally

“Although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,”

[SunSeeker]

12. If Trump can bring Noem back from El Salvador, he can bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back too.

[Seinan Sensei]

18. Send a plane full of tRump voters to El Salvidor

And tell them they cannot return unless/until they have Kilmar Abrego Garcia with them

[ToxMarz]

13. What are they saying they have no ability to bring him back now

Trump is paying them to take the prisoners. As long as Trump is signing the checks, they will do whatever the fuck he wants. What the hell do they care. They didn't take them because they wanted them for any other reasons.

[lees1975]

14. Some blue state police department needs to arrest him for doing this. It's criminal.

This is a deal breaker. We can't let this keep happening, people.

[0rganism]

16. Naturally unacceptable. The test now facing the American people is whether we can be convinced to accept it.

I strongly suspect we will fail this test, but hey, I've been wrong many times before. Maybe this time we find a way to assess correctly this one pitifully stupid dilemma and apply the emergent reasoning to principles of government and then somehow, someway, turn this madness inside-out... ...Nah, we gonna fail at step 1.

[moniss]

17. The military death squad members

working the prison will likely just "disappear" the situation.

[DFW]

19. I would find a judge to order Noem to El Salvador

Only permitted to return to the USA accompanied by Kilmar Abrego García.

Wanna bet they’d find a way before dinner that day?