Jennifer VasquezOn March 12, Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned home with his young son in Maryland when he was arrested by American immigration agents and customs application (ICE).
The agents placed Mr. Garcia in police custody, then returned it to detention facilities in Louisiana and Texas.
According to a federal judge, after three days, “without any notice, legal proceedings or hearing”, Mr. Garcia found himself in his native salvador in a infamous prison known for the members of the housing gang.
The government said it was expelled due to “administrative error”.
But despite this, Mr. Garcia remains incarcerated in Salvador while lawyers debate unusual subtleties of the case.
A Maryland court ordered that Mr. Garcia has returned to the United States, but Trump officials argued that they could not force El Salvador to return Mr. Garcia. The administration also argued that the judge ordering that his return did not have the power to do so.
On Monday, the Supreme Court put a temporary grip on the orders of the lower courts while considering the question.
Immigration experts say that, as American president Donald Trump adopts a hard approach to illegal immigration, this case has the potential to upset the regular procedure for immigrants.
“If the United States Supreme Court should accept [the Trump administration’s] Position, it would completely avoid any rule of law in the immigration process, “Maureen Sweeney, director of the Chacón Center for Immigrant Justice of the University of Maryland, at the BBC.
“Because they could pick up anyone at any time, and send them anywhere without any repercussions.”
The Trump Administration repeats
US District Judge Paula Xinis wrote in a file on Sunday that ice officials did not follow the procedures for the Immigration and Nationality Act when they expelled Mr. Garcia to Salvador.
She judged that the United States had to bring him back before midnight on Monday. The fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, writing that the United States “does not have the legal power to tear a person who is legally present in the United States out of the street”.
However, the Trump administration argued that it could not comply, saying that the deposit of judge Xinis is outside its jurisdiction.
“Neither a federal district court nor the United States has the power to tell the government of El Salvador what to do,” wrote US General John Sauer in an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Nicole Hallett, professor at the law faculty of the University of Chicago, said that even if she was true – the judges of the American district cannot order Salvador to act – they can order the US government to bring Mr. Garcia to return.
She also said that the United States had previously made it easier to return from individuals.
Professor Hallett has also questioned the government’s assertion that the United States is powerless to oblige Salvador to release Mr. Garcia, citing an agreement between the two countries.
The United States, under the Trump administration, paid the government of El Salvador $ 6 million to accommodate the prisoners he sends, according to CBS News, the US BBC partner. High officials such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself publicly praised the arrangement.
“It is almost as if the Salvadoran government acted as an agent of the United States government,” said Hallett, arguing that it makes the release more plausible.
Mr. Garcia’s lawyers argued that because El Salvador held Mr. Garcia “on a direct request and under financial compensation” of the United States, the court could order the US government to request its return.
Mr. Garcia is part of 238 Venezuelans and 23 salvadoran expelled under the Trump administration to the notorious mega-prison of El Salvador. Officials allege that they are gang members and are therefore subject to expulsion.
Mr. Garcia, who is married to an American citizen, has no gang ties and has never been accused of a crime, says his lawyer.
He was also protected by an “reservoir of kidnapping” order, which means that the United States government cannot send it back to El Salvador because it could harm. The order dates back to 2019, when Ice arrested Mr. Garcia for the first time and allegedly alleged that he belonged to the criminal organization MS-13, an allegation he denied at the time.
These orders are common, the BBC’s immigration lawyers said and are an alternative to asylum protections.
“It was an illegal act for the United States to return it to the country where it could not be returned,” said Amelia Wilson, director of the Immigration Clinic at Pace University.
A judge finally granted Mr. Garcia the 2019 ordinance after “testifying to the way he was the victim of gangs’ violence in Salvador when he was a teenager and he came to the United States to escape all of this,” his wife wrote, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, in an affidavit of March 2025.
The lawyer of the Ministry of Justice, Erez Rebeni, recognized that when the “government did not appeal this decision, it is therefore final”.
The Trump administration now reiterates the allegations according to which Mr. Garcia belonged to MS-13, but judge Xinis said that the government had made this claim “without any evidence” and had not produced a prescription or a moving mandate.
Objects of confrontation of the Supreme Court are found
The Trump administration continues to bring plead in the highest court in the country, setting up a potential confrontation on the deportation strategy of the White House.
Head judge John Roberts made an administrative suspension on Monday evening, arresting lower justice decisions while the United States Supreme Court examines the government’s appeal.
President Trump presented the stay as a victory, writing on Truth Social that the decision allowed the president “to obtain our borders and to protect our families and our country, himself”.
Immigration lawyers, for their part, look closely at the case of Mr. Garcia, considering that it is a test for the quantity of power of the administration which can exercise on American immigration.
“If the Trump administration tries to withdraw these people by circumventing the immigration courts,” said Ms. Wilson, “there is a direct and obvious line between what they are doing, and an administration effort to completely usurp the judiciary and the regular procedure.”
