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<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>Judge orders the Trump administration to return man who was mistakenly deported</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width"> <link id="favicon" rel="shortcut icon" type="image/png" href="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABAAAAAQCAYAAAAf8/9hAAAAAXNSR0IArs4c6QAAAHlJREFUOBFjYBgFFIcA48cYpf/opvAv+YouxODXshZDbFONDSMLSJRv8V245KdYZTD7//8XcDFGRgkwe2O1NVzMv/UomA02AMQCaUQ2CCQG0ohsEEgMphHEBgEmCIWdRNeMTRXYBTBnw2iYQpjTYXx022Hio/RAhwAAjXEfJrIXnj4AAAAASUVORK5CYII="> <style> body { display: block; padding: 0px 20px; max-width: 550px; margin: 0 auto; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; } .full-version-link { margin-left: 15px; } .slug-line { font-size: 1.1rem; margin-bottom: 15px; } .hr-line { position: relative; height: 4px; } .hr-line:after { background: linear-gradient(to right, #e60000 0%, #e60000 33.33%, #000000 33.33%, #000000 66.66%, #3366CC 66.66%); position: absolute; content: ''; height: 4px; right: 0; left: 0; top: 0; } hr.gray { border: .5px solid gray; } .story-title { line-height: 2rem; font-size: 1.5rem; margin: 0; } .topic-heading { line-height: 2rem; font-size: 1.5rem; } .topic-container>ul { padding: 0; line-height: 1.4rem; } .topic-container li { display: block; padding-bottom: 15px; } .topic-container { margin-top: 20px; } .topic-date { margin: 20px 0; font-style: italic; } .paragraphs-container { line-height: 1.5rem; } .button:link, .button:visited { background-color: white; color: black; border: 2px solid black; padding: 4px 8px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; display: inline-block; } .button:hover, .button:active { background-color: black; color: white; } .lower-nav-container { margin-top: 40px; } .lower-nav-container li { margin-left: 0; display: inline; padding-right: 20px; } h6 { text-transform: uppercase; } </style> </head> <body> <header> <p>Text-Only Version <a class="full-version-link button" href="https://www.npr.org/nx-s1-5352448">Go To Full Site</a></p> </header> <main> <article> <div class="story-container"> <p class="slug-line"> <a class="slug-link" href="/">NPR</a> > <a class="slug-link" href="/1003">National</a> </p> <div class="story-head"> <h1 class="story-title">Judge orders the Trump administration to return man who was mistakenly deported</h1> <p>By Joel Rose, Sergio Martínez-Beltrán</p> <p>Updated Friday, April 4, 2025 • 6:10 PM EDT</p> <p>Heard on <a href="/nx-s1-5328260/2025-04-04">All Things Considered</a> </div> <div class="hr-line"></div> <div class="paragraphs-container"> <p>GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge in Maryland Friday ordered the Trump administration to take immediate steps to return a Maryland man who was deported to a Salvadoran mega-prison by mistake, setting up another high-stakes clash between the White House and the courts.</p><p>"This was an illegal act," U.S. Federal District Judge Paula Xinis told Justice Department lawyers at a federal court hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland about the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who lived in the U.S. legally and had a work permit. Abrego Garcia was <a href="/2025/04/01/nx-s1-5347427/maryland-el-salvador-error" target="_blank"><u>arrested and deported last month</u></a> — despite having been granted protection by an immigration judge in 2019 that should have prevented him from being deported to El Salvador.</p><p>Judge Xinis ordered the government to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. by 11:59 p.m. on Monday, April 7. She said keeping him in El Salvador constitutes irreparable harm.</p><p>"From the moment he was seized, it was unconstitutional," Judge Xinis said during the hearing. "If there isn't a document, a warrant, a statement of probable cause, then there is no basis to have seized him in the first place. That's how I'm looking at it," the judge said.</p><p>The Trump administration on Friday indicated it will appeal the ruling to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. </p><p>The Justice Department admits that Abrego Garcia was deported because of an administrative error. But DOJ lawyers argued in court papers that he is a member of the criminal gang MS-13 and that the judge lacks the authority to order his return since Abrego Garcia is no longer in the U.S.</p><p>Abrego Garcia's lawyers told the court that's nonsense and said the Department of Homeland Security should bring Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador immediately.</p><p>"They're coming before this court and saying we've tried nothing, and we're all out of options," said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego Garcia's lawyers.</p><p>Erez Reuveni, a lawyer for the Justice Department, took a different approach, asking the judge for more time to discuss the matter with his clients in the Trump administration.</p><p>"I would ask the court to give us the defendants one more chance to do this" without an order from the court, Reuveni asked at the end of the hearing. Judge Xinis rejected that request.</p><p>She asked Reuveni to explain why Abrego Garcia was arrested last month. But Reuveni said he didn't know.</p><p>Abrego Garcia had been living in Maryland with his wife and children, all U.S. citizens, when he was arrested by ICE officers last month.</p><p>"In a blink of an eye, our three children lost their father, and I lost the love of my life, his mother lost his son, his siblings lost their brother," said Jennifer Vasquez, Abrego Garcia's wife, at a press conference earlier Friday in Maryland.</p><p>"Our entire family is broken" by ICE's "error," she said, and described Abrego García as a dedicated father and great husband who "pushes everyone around to find their happiness, even in tough times." The White House has cast Abrego García as a member of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ms13-gang-arrest-bondi-el-salvador-trump-1cbc860c58257db21e0926b95d825f6d" target="_blank"><u>MS-13</u></a>, and a threat to the public.</p><p>"You would think this individual was Father of the Year, living in Maryland, living a peaceful life, when that couldn't be further from the truth," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier this week.</p><p>But Abrego Garcia's attorneys say the government has offered no evidence that he was ever a member of MS-13. They say that allegation is based on a confidential informant's claim in 2019 that Abrego Garcia was a member of the gang in New York, a state where he has never lived, and on the fact that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie. His lawyers say Abrego Garcia has no criminal record in the U.S. or any other country.</p><p>During Friday's hearing, Judge Xinis sounded skeptical about the Justice Department's allegations against Abrego Garcia.</p><p>"That's just chatter in my view. I haven't been given any evidence," Xinis said. "In a court of law when someone is accused of membership in such a violent and predatory organization, it comes in the form of an indictment, a complaint, a criminal proceeding that then has robust process, so we can assess facts."</p><p>Police in Prince George's County, Maryland arrested Abrego Garcia in 2019 in the parking lot of a Home Depot where he was seeking work as a day laborer, according to his lawyers. But they never again questioned him regarding MS-13, or accused him of membership in MS-13 after that initial arrest.</p><p>An immigration judge later granted Abrego Garcia what's known as a withholding of removal, finding that he was more likely than not to be harmed if he was returned to El Salvador. Lawyers for the Justice Department and Abrego Garcia agree that status should have prevented his deportation to El Salvador last month.</p><p>Abrego Garcia was removed from the country on March 15th along with hundreds of other alleged gang members, who remain incarcerated at a supermax prison in El Salvador.</p><p>The Trump administration contends that all of the men have ties to MS-13 or Tren de Aragua, two gangs that the U.S. has designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. But many of the men do not have criminal records, and immigrant advocates say the men did not have a chance to contest the allegations against them before they were deported.</p><p>Lawyers and family members for a growing number of those men say they are not gang members, and believe that they were targeted for arrest and removal largely because of their tattoos.</p><p>At the rally in Maryland earlier on Friday, Vasquez said she stands with other mothers and wives whose sons have been deported by the Trump administration.</p><p>"The only thing we have at the end of the day is our faith and our strength to fight back," Vasquez said. "We must fight for our husbands, our children, our neighbors, our loved ones — fight for Kilmar and fight for all the immigrant families lighting a candle for the loved ones that disappeared."</p> <hr> <h3>Transcript</h3> <p>ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: <p><p> Today, a federal judge in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to return a man who was deported to a Salvadoran megaprison by mistake. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was arrested and deported last month despite having been granted protection from an immigration judge that should have prevented his removal to El Salvador. Now a federal judge has ordered the administration to bring him back to the U.S. by the end of the day Monday. This sets up another high-stakes clash between the White House and the courts. NPR's Joel Rose was in the courtroom today. Hi, Joel.<p><p>JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.<p><p>SHAPIRO: Remind us who this man is.<p><p>ROSE: Yes. He is - Kilmar Abrego Garcia is originally from El Salvador. He's been living in Maryland with his wife and their three children, all of them U.S. citizens. Abrego Garcia was allowed to stay in the U.S. and had a work permit. He has a form of protection known as withholding of removal because an immigration judge found in 2019 that Abrego Garcia was more likely than not to face harm if he was sent back to El Salvador. In spite of that, ICE officers arrested Abrego Garcia in Maryland last month, and a few days later, he was deported to El Salvador along with hundreds of other men who are accused of being members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 or the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.<p><p>Abrego Garcia's family sued. The Trump administration admitted that he was deported by mistake because of what they described as an administrative error. But the Justice Department argued there was nothing they could do because Abrego Garcia was already out of the U.S.' hands.<p><p>SHAPIRO: Which apparently was not persuasive in court today - tell us how it went down.<p><p>ROSE: Yeah, that argument did not go well with federal judge Paula Xinis, who heard oral arguments today. Xinis described the arrest itself as an illegal act. She said, quote, "from the moment he was seized, it was unconstitutional," unquote. The judge spent a long time grilling the lawyer for the Department of Justice about the legal authority for this arrest or for Abrego Garcia's continued detention in El Salvador, and the Justice Department lawyer said he did not have the answers to those questions. The judge also asked him why the administration had not tried to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. when they first learned about this mistake. And the lawyer said he had asked his clients inside the Trump administration the very same thing and never got a satisfying answer.<p><p>Xinis took a short break after the hearing and then came back and read her order from the bench. She gave the Trump administration until the end of the day on Monday to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. And you could hear a cheer go up from the crowd that was gathered outside the courthouse to support Abrego Garcia, as the judge read that order.<p><p>SHAPIRO: So the deadline is midnight Monday. What is the Trump administration saying about this?<p><p>ROSE: The White House claims that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, but his lawyers deny that. They say that allegation dates back to the time that he was arrested in 2019 in the parking lot of a Home Depot where he was looking for work. His lawyers say that gang allegation is based solely on a confidential informant who accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the gang in New York, which is a state where he never lived, and on the fact that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie.<p><p>Abrego Garcia's lawyers say he has no criminal record in any country, and if the Trump administration had any evidence to support its claims, they did not attempt to submit it in this case. Judge Xinis noted that there was no evidence about alleged gang allegations in front of her. She said, quote, "that's just chatter, in my view," unquote. And she said, when you present allegations like that in a court of law, they have to be based on evidence like indictments or criminal complaints, none of which the Trump administration put on the record here.<p><p>SHAPIRO: So just briefly, what happens next?<p><p>ROSE: That is the big question. The administration has certainly been pushing the limits of compliance with other federal courts, including in another case about these same deportation flights. Judge Xinis gave the administration until 11:59 p.m. on Monday night to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. It is possible that the administration will comply. Late in the day Friday, the Trump administration filed a notice of appeal, indicating that they will ask the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to block this order, but there's still a lot that could happen between now and Monday night.<p><p>SHAPIRO: That is NPR's Joel Rose. Thank you.<p><p>ROSE: You're welcome.<p><p>(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)<p> </div> </div> </article> </main> <div class="hr-line"></div> <nav> <p>Topics</p> <ul> <li><a href="/1001">News</a></li> <li><a href="/1008">Culture</a></li> <li><a href="/1039">Music</a></li> </ul> </nav> <footer> <nav class="lower-nav-container"> <li><a href="/614470770">Contact Us</a></li> <li><a href="/179876898">Terms of Use</a></li> <li><a href="/179881519">Permissions</a></li> <li><a href="/179878450">Privacy Policy</a></li> </nav> <p>&copy NPR</p> </footer> </body> </html>