Maryland Man Gets Deported to El Salvador Over ‘Administrative Error’ and People Are Shook
Immigration authorities deported an innocent Maryland man due to an “administrative error.” Kilmar Arbrego-Garcia came to the United States legally in 2011 but the didn’t spare him deportation to El Salvador. The father is now in legal limbo in the notorious prison and immigration authorities say there is nothing they can do to bring him back home.
Immigration authorities deported a Maryland man and claim it was an error
Legal counsel argue that Kilmar Arbrego-Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador on March 15, 2025, was wrongful. Immigration authorities claim that it was an “administrative error.” A U.S. judge granted Abrego-Garcia asylum in 2019, which protected him from deportation and gave him legal status in the United States. Immigration authorities deported him despite having this information, according to court filings.
Immigration authorities included Arbrego-Garcia in the hundreds of people deported on three deportation flights to El Salvador. The three flights on March 15, 2025, have set off a legal firestorm about the use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Attorneys for the Trump administration balked at U.S. District Judge James Boasberg’s stay of deportations.
For Arbrego-Garcia, the deportation separates him from his wife and 5-year-old autistic daughter. Arbrego-Garcia’s family didn’t know about his deportation until March 16, 2025. They identified him in photos of people in El Salvador’s mega-prison CECOT.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office director Robert Cerna, the deportation is an unfortunate oversight. According to The Guardian, Arbrego-Garcia moved up the list for the deportation flight as other people were removed from the list.
“Through administrative error, Abrego-Garcia was removed from the United States to El Salvador,” Cerna said in court filings. “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. This removal was an error.”
Vice President JD Vance took to social media to defend the unlawful deportation to El Salvador
In a post to X (formerly Twitter), Vice President Vance claims, without evidence, that Arbrego-Garcia had “no legal right to be here.” He further claims that Arbrego-Garcia is a member of the gang MS-13. Vice President Vance’s statement is counter to the court’s decision in 2019. The court decision protects Arbrego-Garcia from deportation.
“We disagree that he is an MS-13 gang member. The only basis of his gang membership was a confidential informant, there was never any hard and fast proof,” Arbrego-Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told NBC News.
Sandoval-Moshenberg added: “There is a judicial process. They could have gone back to the judge who, in 2019, gave him an order of protection and could have asked that judge to lift that order. They didn’t do that, they just put him on an airplane.”
The case to reverse Arbrego-Garcia’s deportation is being heard in court on Friday. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told NBC News that “he should be locked up.” They further accused “mainstream media” of doing the bidding of gangs by exposing the story of wrongful deportations.
