The Trump administration has come under fire for allegedly arresting and deporting immigrants who were not criminals, as the White House has claimed was the intent of its mass round-up operation.
In the wake of a judge’s determination that federal immigration officers wrongly deported Maryland resident Kilmar Armando Abrego-Garcia, Democrats and immigration lawyers have called for investigations into other instances where people who do not fit the bill have been taken into custody.
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NO, KILMAR ARMANDO ABREGO GARCIA WAS NOT IN THE UNITED STATES LEGALLY
Those calls for audits on whom the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested and deported are not without good reason, according to new information obtained by Reuters that shows dozens deported without due process appeared to have been wrongly arrested.
Abrego-Garcia was arrested and labeled a member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He was then loaded on one of three planes that transported what President Donald Trump labeled as dangerous criminals to a mega-prison in El Salvador — all without having to go before a judge under Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act last month.
Of the 238 Venezuelans sent to El Salvador’s mega-prison, dozens had active asylum cases and were therefore protected from being deported by ICE, according to Reuters. The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the Trump administration over the removals, which occurred in March.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (R-MD) called out the White House Tuesday for mistakenly picking up Abrego-Garcia and sending him out of the country without due diligence.
“Your lawyers admitted in federal court that ICE made an ‘error’ by deporting an immigrant who lives in Maryland with no criminal record,” Raskin said during a hearing Tuesday morning. “This is a blatant violation of due process and the U.S. Constitution, which still governs here. And he was not your only ‘error.'”
A Maryland father with legal status, on his way to pick up his autistic son, was seized by ICE and deported. No hearing, no charges, no judge—just shackled and disappeared into a Salvadoran mega-prison, indefinitely.⁰ ⁰@RepRaskin explains: This is what happens when due process… pic.twitter.com/YJWQCYNBBn
— House Judiciary Dems (@HouseJudiciary) April 1, 2025
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), ranking member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, compared Abrego-Garcia’s arrest and removal to “abduction.”
“Whether it is Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, Khalil Mahmoud, Alfredo Suarez, Lewelyn Dixon, Fabian Schmidt, Ranjani Srinivasan, or Rebecca Burke, the Trump administration is out of control with indiscriminate, and often illegal actions, in the name of so-called immigration enforcement,” Jayapal said in a statement Tuesday.
The White House hit back at critics during a press briefing Tuesday afternoon, saying Abrego-Garcia was involved in human trafficking and an MS-13 gang member, a gang comprised of citizens from El Salvador. Leavitt admitted that he was removed as the result of a “clerical error” but maintained that he was a “leader of the brutal MS-13 gang.”
White House press sec. Karoline Leavitt called the ICE deportation of a Maryland man to a notorious El Salvador prison a "clerical error," saying, without submitting evidence, he was a "leader of the brutal MS-13 gang." https://t.co/VbPW3LO1oX pic.twitter.com/H1o3aKo9u7
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 1, 2025
However, other instances of wrongful arrest and deportation to El Salvador include that of Neri Alvarado, a baker from Dallas who said he was arrested for having a tattoo. His tattoo shows a rainbow-colored ribbon, the universal autism awareness symbol, in honor of his brother.
NEW: @MotherJones reports that one of the men renditioned to El Salvador is Neri Alvarado, who was working in Dallas as a baker. An ICE agent told him they were questioning all men with tattoos.
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) March 26, 2025
Neri has an AUTISM AWARENESS TATTOO in honor of his 15-year-old brother with autism. pic.twitter.com/eufotQrax2
Frengel Reyes Mota of Venezuela was also picked up by ICE and sent to the infamous Salvadoran prison without due process. Reyes Mota is an asylum-seeker whose attorney told an immigration judge in Miami on Monday that he is a father with no criminal history in Venezuela and no gang activity in the United States.
“We are facing a novel and extremely concerning situation where people’s immigration court proceedings are still pending, but they are being disappeared from the United States without any lawful removal order,” Reyes Mota’s lawyer, Mark Prada, told the judge. “This is an affront to the rule of law.”
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However, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller maintained that immigrants, regardless of legal status, could and would face deportation.
“Friendly reminder: If you illegally invaded our country the only ‘process’ you are entitled to is deportation,” Miller wrote in a post to X Tuesday.