Federal judge orders Trump admin to return Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador prison

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to arrange for the return of a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported from the U.S. to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed Kilmar Abrego Garcia last month despite an immigration judge's 2019 ruling that shielded him from deportation to his native El Salvador, where he likely faced persecution by local gangs.

Before her ruling on Friday, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis described Abrego Garcia's deportation as "an illegal act." Garcia had been detained by ICE and sent back amid claims of ties to the country's notorious MS-13 gang.

The authorities must comply with Xinis' ruling by Monday. The judge, in her order, also questioned why he was sent to the prison, which observers have said is rife with human rights abuses.

"Why is he there, of all places?" the judge demanded. Her ruling came shortly after Abrego Garcia's wife joined dozens of supporters at a rally urging her husband's immediate return to the States.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura, who is a U.S. citizen, hasn't spoken to her husband since he was flown to his native country last month and imprisoned. She urged her supporters to keep fighting for her husband "and all of the Kilmars out there whose stories are still waiting to be heard."

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"To all the wives, mothers, children who also face this cruel separation, I stand with you in this bond of pain," she said during the rally at a community center in Hyattsville, Maryland. "It’s a journey that no one ever should ever have to suffer, a nightmare that feels endless."

Now, the campaign to reunited the couple will shift to a courtroom in Greenbelt, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. The White House previously cast Abrego Garcia, 29, as a member of the notorious MS-13 gang and asserted that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction over the matter because the Salvadoran national is no longer in the U.S.

But his attorneys have countered that there isn't evidence he was ever in MS-13. The allegation is based on a confidential informant's 2019 claim that Abrego Garcia was a member of a chapter based in New York, where he has never lived.

The 29-year-old's mistaken deportation, which was described by the White House as an "administrative error," outraged many and raised concerns about the mass expulsion of noncitizens who were granted permission to be in the U.S.

Abrego Garcia had a permit from the Department of Homeland Security to legally work in the U.S., and his attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said he served as a sheet metal apprentice and was pursuing his journeyman license.

He fled El Salvador around 2011 because he and his family were facing threats by local gangs. In 2019, a U.S. immigration judge granted him protection from deportation to El Salvador because he was likely to face gang persecution. He was released, and ICE didn't appeal the decision or attempt to deport him to another country.

Later, the man married Vasquez Sura, and the couple are parents to their son and her two children from a previous relationship. "If I had all the money in the world, I would spend it all just to buy one thing: a phone call to hear Kilmar’s voice again," Vasquez Sura said. "Kilmar, if you can hear me, I miss you so much, and I’m doing the best to fight for you and our children."