April 13, 2025.

This evening, lawyers for the Department of Justice told a federal court that the administration does not believe it has a legal obligation to return Kilmar Armando Abrago Garcia to the United States,

despite a court order to do so.

The 29-year-old Obrigo Garcia came to the U.S. about 2011 when he was 16 to escape threats

from a gang that was terrorizing his family.

He settled in Maryland with his older brother, a U.S. citizen, and lived there until in 2019

he was picked up by police as he waited at a Home Depot to be picked up for work as a day laborer.

Police transferred him to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

After a hearing, an immigration judge rejected his claim for asylum, but said he could not be sent back to El Salvador,

finding it credible that the Barrio 18 gang had been targeting him and threatening him with

death because of his family's Pupusa business. Ever since, Abrago Garcia has checked in annually

with ICE as directed. He lives with his wife and their three children and has never been charged

with any crime. The Department of Homeland Security issued him a work permit, and he joined a union,

working full-time as a sheet metal apprentice.

On March 12th, ICE agents pulled his car over, told his wife to come pick up their disabled

son and incarcerated Abrago Garcia, pressing him to say he was a member of MS-13.

On March 15th, the government rendered Abrago-Garcia to the infamous

Seacot Prison for Terrorists in El Salvador, alleged to be the site of human rights abuses,

torture, and extrajudicial killings. The U.S. government is paying El Salvador $6 million a year

to incarcerate the individuals

it sends there. On March 24th, Abrago Garcia's family sued the administration over his removal.

On March 31st, the government admitted that its arrest and rendition of Abrago Garcia happened

...