A US judge ruled on Friday that the Trump administration must return a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador back to the United States within three days, the latest legal setback for the administration’s hardline deportation policies.
The US has already acknowledged Kilmar Abrego Garcia – a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the US legally with a work permit – was deported in error as part of three planeloads of migrants flown out last month over alleged ties to violent gangs.
Salvadoran prison guards escort alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and the MS-13 gang recently deported by the US Government to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, as part of an agreement with the Salvadoran Government, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, in this handout image obtained on 31st March, 2025. PICTURE: Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidencia/Handout via Reuters/File photo
But the administration has argued it has no legal authority to bring him back to the country, though Abrego Garcia’s lawyers dispute that.
“They put him there, they can bring him back,” Andrew Rossman, lawyer at prominent law firm Quinn Emanuel that joined Abrego Garcia’s legal team on Friday, said in a statement.
After questioning government lawyers, US District Judge Paula Xinis ruled at a Greenbelt, Maryland, court hearing that the government must take steps to bring him back to the United States by 7th April.
The Justice Department will appeal the order to the Richmond-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals, according to a court filing after the hearing. The department and White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At the hearing, Abrego Garcia’s lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg told the judge that there was no legal basis for the deportation.
“They admit they had no legal authorisation to remove him to El Salvador,” Moshenberg said. “The public interest lies in the government following the law.”
Erez Reuveni, a lawyer for the government, conceded that Abrego Garcia should not have been removed.
“That is not in dispute,” Reuveni said.
In an unusual exchange, Xinis grilled Reuveni on why the US couldn’t get Abrego Garcia back – to which Reuveni said he had asked US Government officials that question without getting a satisfactory answer himself.
“The absence of evidence speaks for itself,” Reuveni said.
The case is the latest flashpoint in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, which has raised constitutional questions and drawn the rebuke of a judge in Washington who is weighing whether US officials violated a court order temporarily blocking the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members under an 18th-century law.
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Trump on 15th March invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to rapidly deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The administration said it sent two flights to El Salvador that day carrying deportees processed under the rarely used wartime statute and a third flight carrying people deported under other rules.
Abrego Garcia was wrongfully placed on the third flight despite an October 2019 judicial order granting him protection from deportation, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement official has said in a court filing.
Abrego Garcia was stopped and detained by ICE officers on 12th March and questioned about his alleged gang affiliation. The government asserted in his earlier immigration dispute in 2019 that Abrego Garcia was a member of the gang MS-13, which he has denied.
His lawyers, who also represent his wife and five-year-old child in the US, in a court filing said the US had failed to take any voluntary steps “to rectify what they themselves describe as an error.” Abrego Garcia’s wife, who attended Friday’s hearing, and child are US citizens.
The Trump administration has also sent military troops to the US border and reassigned federal agents to focus on immigration enforcement amid ramped up arrests and deportation efforts.
