Man deported to El Salvador moved to a prison with bed, furniture

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The Trump administration told a federal judge that a Maryland man wrongly deported to his native El Salvador was moved more than a week ago out of the controversial CECOT mega prison where he’d been held with other accused gang members.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was transferred to a detention facility known as Centro Industrial in Santa Ana, El Salvador, the US State Department said in a Sunday filing that did not give a reason for the move. Abrego Garcia personally reported his transfer to US Senator Chris Van Hollen when the Maryland Democrat visited El Salvador on April 17, according to the filing. The location of that meeting wasn’t disclosed.

“Abrego Garcia told Sen. Van Hollen that he had been placed in the administrative building of Centro Industrial, in a room of his own with a bed and furniture, and that he was not in a cell,” according to State Department official Michael Kozak, who has been providing updates to a US judge overseeing the case.

Abrego Garcia has been at the center of a political firestorm that began when President Donald Trump invoked a rarely used wartime law to unilaterally order the removal of accused Venezuelan gang members, even as a judge verbally ordered that two planes carrying the group turn around. The government later admitted that Abrego Garcia deported with the group due to an “administrative error” but has balked at seeking his return.

Lawyers for Abrego Garcia didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

His wife, Jennifer, who is a US citizen, issued a statement praising four additional Democratic members of Congress who arrived in El Salvador to see her husband.

“We are particularly concerned about Kilmar’s health and hope to receive news about that from the visit,” she said. “Their presence sends a powerful message: the fight to bring Kilmar home isn’t over.”

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Last week, a US appeals court denied the Trump administration’s emergency motion to halt a federal judge’s effort to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, saying the Justice Department’s conduct was shocking to Americans’ “sense of liberty.” US District Judge Paula Xinis, who is overseeing the case in lower court, is seeking wide-ranging evidence from the government about why it hasn’t sought Abrego Garcia’s return.

The Supreme Court has also weighed in, ruling earlier that the accused Tren de Aragua gang members must get a “reasonable time” to challenge their deportation in federal court, and that the US must take steps to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return. Many of the detainees say they aren’t gang members, and they contend Trump can’t deport them by invoking the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.

In another case, on Saturday morning, a divided Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting a group of Venezuelans, granting them a reprieve from being imminently sent to El Salvador.