The Trump administration previously admitted to making an ‘administrative error’ with the Maryland father
Donald Trump’s administration is claiming a judge does not have the authority to order the government to return a father who was sent to El Salvador’s notorious mega prison by mistake.
The Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT), infamous across the Americas, is a fortress-like mega-prison in El Salvador known for locking away the continent’s most dangerous criminals—including Venezuelan gang leaders and notorious mass murderers. With a staggering capacity of 40,000 inmates, it stands as the largest facility of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. Over the years, more than 250 alleged offenders have been shipped off to its bleak, heavily-guarded compound.
But recently, the CECOT made headlines for a very different reason—one tied not to organized crime, but to a devastating bureaucratic blunder. In a stunning admission, officials from President Trump’s team confirmed that a Maryland father—who held protected legal status in the U.S.—was mistakenly deported to El Salvador and dropped into the jaws of the same prison meant for the hemisphere’s most hardened criminals.
Yes. A paperwork screw-up may have landed a family man in the same cell block as contract killers. Bureaucracy: now with bonus terror.
A high-stakes legal twist has emerged in the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was wrongly deported by U.S. immigration officials—despite being granted protected legal status back in 2019.
According to a court filing made public on March 31, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) knowingly violated that protection. “On March 15, although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error,” the filing revealed—confirming that a critical mistake led to the wrongful expulsion of a man who, by law, should never have been touched.
Now, the fallout is escalating. The Trump administration’s legal team is urgently petitioning the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block an April 4 ruling issued by District Judge Paula Xinis. The judge had ordered the federal government to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.—a rare directive that carries diplomatic and constitutional implications.
“The judicial order compels the Executive to act in a specific way with a foreign sovereign,” the attorneys argued, calling it “constitutionally intolerable.”
In short: a man deported by mistake, a federal court demanding his return, and a presidential legal team pushing back with the Constitution in hand. What happens next could redefine the boundaries between judicial power and executive authority in U.S. immigration law.
The fallout from the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia continues to intensify, now drawing sharp internal repercussions and public condemnation.
Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni has been placed on leave after acknowledging that Abrego Garcia—a man legally protected from removal—should neither have been deported from the United States nor sent to El Salvador’s infamous mega-prison.
Attorney General Pam Bondi responded swiftly and forcefully. “At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” Bondi said in a statement. “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”
Yet while the administration scrambles to manage the optics, critics argue that little is being done to correct the error in practice. Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia’s legal representative, sharply criticized the government’s response, accusing officials of performative outrage without concrete diplomatic follow-through.
“Plenty of tweets. Plenty of White House press conferences. But no actual steps taken with the government of El Salvador to make it right,” he told the judge.
So far, the case remains a volatile mix of legal missteps, political posturing, and one man’s life caught in the crossfire.
