Wrongly Deported Man Alive in El Salvador, State Department Says

(Bloomberg) — A Maryland man who was wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador is “alive and secure” in the facility, according to the US State Department.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant who had been lawfully living in Maryland prior to being deported, is in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, senior State official Michael Kozak said in a court declaration to the US District Court on Saturday. He cited official reporting from the US Embassy in San Salvador.

The declaration comes after Justice Department lawyers missed a deadline from Maryland District Judge Paula Xinis to provide answers on Abrego Garcia’s location and status in prison. She gave them until Friday morning to answer her questions, but US lawyers said that wasn’t enough time.

Abrego Garcia is being detained “pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador,” Kozak said, without providing further details.

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s administration must take steps to return Abrego Garcia to the US. The decision establishes a limit on Trump’s deportation power amid his efforts for sweeping authority with minimal judicial review.

Trump officials have said that Abrego Garcia, 29, is a member of the MS-13 criminal gang, which his lawyers and Xinis rejected. Immigration officials had arrested him on March 12 and accused him of playing a “prominent role” in MS-13, though he hasn’t been convicted of a crime or charged with one. He was flown to El Salvador on March 15 along with more than 200 other alleged gang members.

Abrego Garcia had been living with his wife and three children, all US citizens. Under a 2019 immigration court order, he can’t be deported to El Salvador, where he says he would face gang-based extortion and persecution.

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