Immigration officers asked Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia if he was a gang member, and refused to believe him when he denied it, according to court papers.
The harrowing story of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia began six years ago on a March morning, when he dropped his pregnant girlfriend off at her job in suburban Maryland and made his way to a local Home Depot, hoping to find work as a casual day laborer.
It took an even darker turn last month when Mr. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old father and a Salvadoran migrant, was accused of belonging to a violent street gang. He was summarily deported to a Salvadoran prison — even though an American immigration judge had already decided he could remain in the United States, concerned he might be tortured in his homeland.
What happened in between those events is now the subject of a fierce legal battle between his lawyers and the Trump administration, which acknowledged this week that his deportation on March 15 was an “administrative error.”
Even after making the rare admission, the administration has effectively thrown its hands in the air, saying there is little it can do to retrieve Mr. Abrego Garcia from the brutal prison where it accidentally sent him.
For now at least, there appear to be more questions than answers in the case. That could change on Friday, when a federal judge in Maryland is set to consider an emergency request by Mr. Abrego Garcia’s legal team. His lawyers are asking for an order that will force the White House to use whatever means it has at its disposal — diplomacy, money, even a simple phone call — to bring their client back to the United States.
On Wednesday afternoon, the lawyers wrote to the judge, Paula Xinis, laying out the import of the case, not only for the man they represent, but for all migrants passing through the system.