The Trump administration said it made an “administrative error” in deporting a suspected MS-13 gang member to an El Salvador prison despite an immigration judge’s order barring his removal to that nation.
But while admitting immigration officials made an error, Justice Department lawyers argued that Kilmer Armado Abrego Garcia should not be returned to the US because he’s a member of MS-13 and a danger to the community.
While aliens shouldn’t be “wrongfully removed,” the US has a “strong public interest in not importing members of violent transnational gangs into the country,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing Monday in Maryland federal court.
Abrego Garcia, whose wife and 5-year-old child are US citizens, sued the US after he was flown March 15 with more than 200 migrants on one of three planes to El Salvador. Two planes carried alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua deported under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, sparking an intense legal fight that the US Supreme Court agreed to review. Abrego-Garcia was on a third plane not affected by the Alien Enemies Act, the US said.
“After conceding that they wrongly deported him, the glaring omission in their filing is what they are planning on doing to rectify that mistake,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, a lawyer for Abrego Garcia, said in an interview. “There’s nothing. They’re just washing their hands of this man.”
Sandoval-Moshenberg denied that his client is an MS-13 member and said he’s a sheet metal worker.
A citizen of El Salvador, Abrego Garcia seeks an order blocking the US from providing financial support for his detention at the notorious CECOT prison, where his lawyer says he is “being subjected to torture and an imminent risk of death.” Sandoval-Moshenberg also wants the judge to order the administration to “request that the government of El Salvador return him to their custody.”
Abrego Garcia went through removal proceedings in 2019, when a confidential informant said he was an active member of MS-13, according to the US filing. An immigration judge initially denied him bail, ruling he was a danger to the community. That judge later said while he should be deported, it couldn’t be to El Salvador because his life or freedom would be threatened, Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
He was released, but arrested by immigration officials on March 12 “due to his prominent role in MS-13,” according to the US filing. He was transferred to Texas ahead of the March 15 flights. He wasn’t supposed to be put on a plane but was anyway through “administrative error,” the US said.
“This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13,” US lawyers wrote.
In their filing, US lawyers cited several other reasons why they oppose his return. For instance, they said, if he came back to the US, “even while in detention, gang members may stoke violence against government officials and other detainees.”
They also said ordering the president “to request the release of a member of a gang responsible for violence and drug trafficking throughout the Americas threatens the country’s national security,” they wrote.
Such an order would amount to “unwarranted judicial interference in the conduct of foreign policy,” the US said.
In a social media post, Vice President JD Vance said that “it’s gross to get fired up about gang members getting deported while ignoring citizens they victimize.”
The case is Abrego Garcia v. Kristi Noem, 25-cv-951, US District Court, District of Maryland .
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
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