A Maryland judge is demanding the return of a man who President Donald Trump’s administration has acknowledged was mistakenly deported to an El Salvador mega-prison.
Last month, the Trump administration sent Kilmar Ábrego García to a notorious mega-jail in the Central American country along with more than 260 Venezuelans and Salvadorans, who officials were gang members.
He was then moved to another prison in the country which has better conditions, according to Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, who met Mr Ábrego García.
The Supreme Court last week partially backed Judge Paula Xinis’s order requiring officials to “facilitate” the Salvadoran national’s release, after the government conceded his deportation was an “administrative error”.
Trump officials have continued to push back against the order, and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said this week he would not let Mr Ábrego García return to the US.
Who is Mr Ábrego García?
Mr Ábrego García, 29, came to the US from El Salvador legally on a work permit around 2011.
In 2019, he was arrested with three other men in Marylland and detained by federal immigration authorities.
An immigration judge granted him protection from deportation on the grounds that he might be at risk of persecution from gangs in his home country.
Mr Ábrego García was living with his wife and child under this protected legal status in Maryland until he was deported on 15 March.
In 2021 his US citizen wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, filed a restraining order against her husband, alleging violence but she soon reported reconciled
