Nadine Yousif and Kayla Epstein

BBC News

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to return a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was expelled last month along with hundreds of alleged gang members, must be returned to the US by no later than Monday, US District Judge Paula Xinis ordered.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a recent court filing that deporting Mr Garcia was an “administrative error”. An immigration judge granted him legal protection from deportation in 2019.

The White House has alleged Mr Garcia is an MS-13 gang member, but his lawyers argued there is no evidence to prove that he is gang-affiliated.

Mr Garcia is one of the 238 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans whom the Trump administration deported to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison, the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (Cecot), alleging they were gang members.

But Mr Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, says his client has never been charged with a crime in any country and rejected the gang accusation.

“This was the equivalent of a forcible expulsion,” Mr Sandoval-Moshenberg said.

ICE officials said Mr Garcia’s deportation was an “administrative error” and an “oversight”.

But the Department of Homeland Security has still argued that the court does not have jurisdiction to order Mr Garcia’s return, because he is in El Salvador’s custody.

Judge Xinis called Mr Garcia’s deportation “an illegal act” when issuing her order on Friday. She said he must be returned by Monday.

The Trump administration has stood by its deportations and criticised judges as politically motivated.

In a post on X, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller referred to Judge Xinis as a “Marxist”, who “now thinks she’s president of El Salvador”.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “We suggest the Judge contact President [Nayib] Bukele because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador.”

Mr Garcia’s family, including his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a US citizen, have been calling for his release since his deportation in mid-March.

Ms Sura has told reporters that she has not spoken to her husband since he was taken by US authorities.

Mr Garcia’s lawyer said the claims by the Trump administration that his client could not be returned were “outrageous”.

“They’re coming before this court and saying, ‘We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of options,'” Mr Sandoval-Moshenberg told Judge Xinis.

Department of Justice attorney Erez Reuveni, who represented the government in court on Friday, acknowledged there were issues with Mr Garcia’s deportation. He said he was ”frustrated” by the lack of answers he was able to provide.

The government lawyer conceded that Mr Garcia “should not have been removed”, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.

“There is no warrant for his arrest. There is no statement of probable cause,” Judge Xinis said. “What is the actual document that got this process started?”

Mr Reuveni said he did “not have that order. It is not on the record”.

The justice department lawyer noted that, in his view, “the government made a choice here to produce no evidence”, adding that this “absence of evidence speaks for itself”.

The case has drawn criticism from Democrats, who have accused the Trump immigration authorities of flouting due process.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a Democrat, wrote on X this week: “They’ve admitted to making an error and I urge them to correct it.”

But Vice-President JD Vance said this week that Democrats who criticised the Trump administration’s deportations have “gone off the deep end, and they’ve got to come back to reality”.