Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador on March 15 and sent to the CECOT prison despite a 2019 U.S. immigration judge's finding that he had a "well-founded fear" of gang persecution. The White House called the deportation an "administrative error." He was returned to the United States on June 6 and immediately detained on federal human-smuggling charges, accused of transporting migrants from Texas. He spent more than two months in detention before being released from criminal custody in Tennessee while awaiting trial. A federal judge ordered that ICE cannot immediately retake him upon release and must transfer him to the Baltimore ICE jurisdiction with 72 hours' notice to his attorneys. A private security firm will transport him back to Maryland.
One of his attorneys, Sean Hecker, said Abrego Garcia was now en route back to his family in Maryland, "after being unlawfully arrested and deported, and then imprisoned, all because of the government's vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the Administration's continuing assault on the rule of law."
Abrego Garcia's case raised basic questions about due process under president Trump's ongoing crackdown on immigrants in the country illegally after he was arrested and sent to El Salvador's CECOT prison in March of this year, violating a U.S. immigration judge's 2019 order that Abrego Garcia had a "well-founded fear" of gang persecution there. The White House called that deportation an "administrative error." He was returned to the U.S. in June.
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