Getty ImagesLawyers for the Justice Department faced a judge on Tuesday to provide updates on a Maryland father that Donald Trump’s administration mistakenly deported.
Last month, the Trump administration sent Kilmar Ábrego García to a mega-jail in El Salvador alongside more than 200 Venezuelans and Salvadorans, many of whom officials have claimed are gang members.
The Supreme Court last week partially backed a judge’s order requiring officials to “facilitate and effectuate” the man’s return to the US, after the government admitted his deportation was an “administrative error”.
Trump officials have continued to push back against the order, and El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele, said this week he would not let Mr Ábrego García go back to the US.
Who is Mr Ábrego García?
Mr Ábrego García came to the US from El Salvador illegally around 2011.
In 2019, an immigration judge granted the Salvadoran national legal protection from deportation in 2019. The order came after Mr Ábrego García was arrested with three other men in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities.
The judge granted him protection from deportation on the grounds that he might be at risk of persecution from local gangs in his home country.
The 29-year-old had been living with his wife and child under this protected legal status in Maryland until he was deported.
Mr Ábrego García’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a US citizen, has said the Trump and Bukele administrations “continue to play political games with his life”.
What has the government said?
The Trump administration has said that Mr Ábrego García’s deportation to El Salvador was an error, but they have also claimed he has ties to the MS-13 gang, a group it designates as a foreign terrorist organisation.
Trump officials have said a confidential informant made them aware of the ties, which Mr Ábrego García’s family members and lawyers dispute.
The federal judge presiding over his case has said Mr Ábrego García has no criminal record in the US or El Salvador, and has called the gang ties “a singular unsubstantiated allegation”. Mr Ábrego García has not been charged with gang activities.
Visiting Trump on Monday, El Salvador’s Bukele said he would not return Mr Ábrego García because “we’re not very fond of releasing terrorists to our country”. No evidence has been provided linking Mr Ábrego García to terrorism.
“The question is preposterous,” Bukele said, an ally of Trump’s since he took over the White House. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
Trump’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, claimed at the meeting that it was “up to El Salvador if they want to return him”.
She claimed the Supreme Court ruled “that if El Salvador wants to return him … we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane”.
On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Democrats and the media had made it seem like “we deported a candidate for father of the year”, claiming once again that he was an MS-13 gang member.
What is Mr Ábrego García status?
Mr Ábrego García is being held in El Salvador’s notorious Cecot (Terrorism Confinement Centre).
Soon after his deportation, his relatives sued the Trump administration to bring him back to the US.
US District Judge Paula Xinis, former President Barack Obama’s appointee, then ordered the government to “facilitate and effectuate” his return by 7 April.
After the Trump administration appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, the nation’s top court ruled unanimously that the Trump administration must try to “facilitate” his return, while asking the district court to clarify its “effectuate” directive.
The justices did not give the administration a deadline for when Mr Ábrego García should be freed.
Last week, Judge Xinis directed the Trump administration to provide her with daily updates on what steps they are taking to bring Mr Ábrego García back to the US.
A US official said over the weekend that the 29-year-old was “alive and secure” in the mega-prison.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen – alongside other lawmakers – said that if Mr Ábrego García was not returned by the middle of the week, he would “travel to El Salvador this week” to check on his condition and try to secure his release.