Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, a Salvadoran man living in the United States, was illegally deported on March 15, 2025, by the US government under the Trump administration, which called it "an administrative error". At the time, he had never been charged with or convicted of a crime in either country; despite this, he was imprisoned without trial in the Salvadoran Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). His case became the most prominent of the hundreds of migrants the US sent to be jailed without trial at CECOT under the countries' agreement where the US would pay the Salvadoran government to imprison US deportees there. The administration defended the deportation and accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of MS-13—a US-designated terrorist organization—based on a county police report mentioned during a 2019 immigration court bail proceeding. Abrego Garcia has denied the allegation.

Abrego Garcia grew up in El Salvador, and around 2011, at age 16, he illegally immigrated to the United States to escape gang threats. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him withholding of removal status due to the danger he would face from gang violence if he returned to El Salvador. This status allowed him to live and work legally in the US. At the time of his deportation in 2025, he lived in Maryland with his wife and children, who are all American citizens, and he was complying with annual US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) check-ins.

After Abrego Garcia was deported, his wife filed suit in Maryland asking that the US government return him to the US. The district court judge ordered the government to "facilitate and effectuate" his return. The government appealed, and on April 10, 2025, the Supreme Court stated unanimously that the government must "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's return to the US. The administration interpreted "facilitate" to mean it was not obligated to seek his release, and it was up to El Salvador whether to release him.

On June 6, 2025, the federal government returned Abrego Garcia to the US, and the Department of Justice announced that he had been indicted in Tennessee for "unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain" and conspiracy to do so. He was jailed in Tennessee. A federal judge in Tennessee ruled that he could be released pending trial, but after his lawyers expressed concern that he might be immediately deported again, she ordered that he remain in prison for his own protection. On July 23, the Maryland and Tennessee courts simultaneously ordered that he be released from prison and prohibited his immediate deportation after release. A month later, he was released on bail and returned to Maryland. ICE officials warned that they intended to deport him to a third country and detained him a few days later. However, on December 11, he was released upon a federal judge's order.