Judge orders Trump to bring home Maryland father who should not have been deported

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to return Kilmar Abrego García, the husband of a U.S. citizen and longtime Maryland resident, to the United States by no later than 11:59 p.m. on Monday.

The Trump administration acknowledged that it had deported the man to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center on March 16, 2025, despite a court’s determination that he had a legitimate fear of persecution in his home country.

“This removal was an error,” a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official wrote in a statement to a federal judge.

On October 10, 2019, an immigration judge issued Abrego-Garcia a grant of protection that prohibited his removal to El Salvador, and he was released from ICE custody.

On March 12, 2025, overzealous ICE Homeland Security Investigations officers arrested Abrego-Garcia and transferred him to a staging area for the removal flights despite his protected status.

“ICE was aware of this grant of withholding of removal at the time Abrego-Garcia’s removal from the United States. Reference was made to this status on internal forms,” said ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert L. Cerna.

“Through administrative error, Abrego-Garcia was removed from the United States to El Salvador. This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith…”

The Trump administration must now ask the government of El Salvador to release the man U.S. immigration officers mistakenly deported to a mega-prison there last month, in an emergency ruling after his lawyers argued that the man was at imminent risk of death.

Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran, was on one of three March 15 deportation flights amid a frantic legal fight over President Donald Trump’s decision to illegally invoke war powers to hasten the deportation of more than 100 people to El Salvador.

In addition to some purported Venezuelan gang members subjected to Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act were other deportees whose removal was entirely unjustified.

Trump’s use of centuries-old war powers to speed deportations — invoked just three times in American history — has provoked a fierce legal and political battle over the president’s authority.

A federal judge barred further removals under the Alien Enemies Act while proceedings play out in court.

That decision triggered Trump to call for the impeachment of judges who have ruled against his administration while House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that Congress might shut down courts that rule the Republican administration is breaking the law and violating the Constitution.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts defended Judge James Boasberg, who is also weighing whether the Trump administration defied his order by deporting after he demanded the March 15 flights to El Salvador be halted or turned around.