The White House on Tuesday said the Maryland father deported to El Salvador’s mega-prison was an MS-13 leader who will not be returning to the U.S., despite the Trump administration previously conceding he was mistakenly sent to the facility housing some of Latin America’s most notorious gang members.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Salvadoran national Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, Maryland, was a major player in the transnational crime syndicate, and referenced documents she witnessed from the Department of Homeland Security to support her assertion.
Ms. Leavitt refused to elaborate on the evidence of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s alleged criminal record. She also did not explain the “clerical” error that caused him to be sent to El Salvador’s 40,000-inmate prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.
But Ms. Leavitt did take time to bash The Atlantic, which broke the story about the Maryland father’s deportation Monday.
“If you just saw the headline from the insane, failing Atlantic magazine this morning, 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,” Ms. Leavitt said from the White House briefing room. “They didn’t even mention in the title of that article, or even in the first paragraph, that this individual is an illegal criminal who broke our nation’s immigration laws, he is a leader in the brutal MS-13 gang and he is involved in human trafficking.”
Since the White House declared MS-13 a foreign terrorist organization, Ms. Leavitt said those linked to the group have no legal protections.
That provided the administration grounds to ignore a 2019 court order granting Mr. Abrego Garcia protected status in the U.S. because he was fleeing gang violence in his home country.
Further, Vice President J.D. Vance posted on X that Mr. Abrego Garcia is a convicted member of MS-13. He said the judge who allowed him to stay in the U.S. relied on evidence gathered by Prince George’s County police during his initial detention five years ago.
Mr. Abrego Garcia’s attorneys countered by saying Prince George’s County police relied on weak evidence — such as the Marylander’s decision to wear a Chicago Bulls jersey — in order to tie him to the violent international gang.
In their own court filing, defense attorneys also said an informant’s accusation that Mr. Abrego Garcia was part of an MS-13 branch in Long Island, New York, was faulty because he never lived in the state.
The Trump administration’s comments seem at odds with a Monday court filing in which officials admitted to mistakenly sending Mr. Abrego Garcia to the Central American prison.
The Maryland resident is one of the hundreds of people flown to CECOT on March 15, days after federal immigration agents said they arrested him due to his “prominent role in MS-13.”
“Through administrative error, Abrego Garcia was removed from the United States to El Salvador,” Robert Cerna, an acting ICE field office director, said in a declaration. “This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13.”
ICE officials said Mr. Abrego Garcia was given a chance to provide information that he was not a part of MS-13, but failed to do so.
U.S. authorities also acknowledged in the declaration that Mr. Abrego Garcia was added onto the flight manifest after other deportees had to be removed for various other reasons.
Federal prosecutors said they cannot retrieve Mr. Abrego Garcia because he is now in Salvadoran custody. They added that the Marylander is unlikely to be “tortured or killed in CECOT.”
El Salvador’s CECOT prison has become a landing spot for gang members affiliated with MS-13 and Venezuelan group Tren de Aragua who are caught inside the States.
More than 250 gang members captured by U.S. authorities have been sent to the prison, which can hold up to 40,000 inmates.
Mr. Abrego is a father of three and is married to a U.S. citizen. His defense attorneys said he married his now wife, Jennifer Vasquez Susa, while he was behind bars at the Howard County Detention Center in 2019 following his initial immigration-related arrest.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.