The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was accidentally deported from the US because of an “administrative error”, has become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s aggressive anti-immigration efforts.
Labelled a terrorist and alleged gang member, claims denied by him and his lawyers, he was temporarily removed to El Salvador earlier this year and now faces yet another deportation order.
The case symbolises Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda. He has signed executive orders ending birthright citizenship and declaring a national emergency at the southern border.
Mass deportations, immigration raids and arrests have increased, sparking protests. But officials have said Garcia’s case shows the administration’s resolve.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Why Trump says he is a gang member
Court documents show Garcia entered the US illegally from El Salvador in 2012, when he was 16 – neither side disputes this.
Garcia claims the Barrio 18 street gang terrorised his family, so he travelled to Maryland, where his brother (a US citizen) lives. He found work in construction and in 2016 he married Jennifer Vasquez Sura, also a US citizen. They have one child together and another two from her previous relationship.
Three years later, he was arrested alongside three other men in the car park of a Home Depot in Maryland. Police said they were “loitering”.
Garcia was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat, a hoodie, and an unnamed informant identified him. The clothing, police said, “represents that [he is] a member in good standing with MS-13”, while the informant confirmed his membership of the gang with the “westerns clique”.
After his arrest, the White House said the tattoos on his hands are consistent with MS-13 associations.
MS-13 is a notorious international criminal gang that was formed in LA, but has roots in El Salvador.
How Garcia disputes these claims
Lawyers for Garcia have strongly refuted the claims of gang associations.
In court filings, they argued the “evidence” amounted to nothing more than his outfit as well as uncorroborated allegation from the unnamed informant.
The “western clique” operates out of New York, they said – a place Garcia has never lived. But in 2019, a judge ruled the information from the source was enough to prove his gang membership – this was later upheld by another judge.
So Garcia was held in custody while he applied for asylum. He was granted a “withholding of removal” order, which prevented the government from deporting him back to El Salvador. This was granted on the basis of a “well-founded” fear of persecution by Barrio-18, the main rival gang of MS-13.
For the next four years, Garcia attended his annual ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) reporting check-ins “without fail and without incident”, his lawyers say.
Read more:
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How Trump’s immigration crackdown has changed lives
What we know about the Los Angeles immigration raids
Further allegations
In 2021, Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, filed a protective order, alleging Garcia had physically attacked her, the details of which came to light after his deportation in 2025.
The Department of Homeland Security shared details of the incident online, saying: “This MS-13 gang member is not a sympathetic figure.”
But Sura said in a statement she and her husband “were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counselling”. She denied her husband was a member of MS-13.
Garcia was also accused of human trafficking following a traffic stop in 2022. He was stopped in Tennessee for speeding, with a report by the Department of Homeland Security saying the eight other people in the car without luggage raised suspicions of human trafficking.
But his wife said he worked in construction and sometimes transported workers between job sites.
Why was Garcia arrested?
On 12 March 2025, Garcia was pulled over by ICE officers while driving his disabled son, a US citizen.
He was taken into custody and three days later called his wife to say he was being deported to El Salvador, where he was imprisoned in the country’s maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). This was despite that aforementioned 2019 order protecting him from deportation.
The Trump administration later admitted it had been an “administrative error” to remove him, but said they could not bring him back as they do not have jurisdiction over El Salvador.
Return to the US – and detained again
After he was eventually returned to the US in June, the Trump administration detained Garcia on criminal charges that were filed in May.
The criminal indictment alleges Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the US illegally and transport them from the border to other destinations in the country.
Minutes after his release on Friday, 22 August, officials notified Garcia they intended to deport him to Uganda.
According to a court filing by his lawyers, immigration officials made an offer to Garcia to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for pleading guilty to the charges.
He was detained during a scheduled check-in with ICE in Baltimore.
“This administration has hit us hard,” he said outside the ICE office on Monday, but added: “God is with us, and God will never leave us. God will bring justice to all the injustice we are suffering.”
He will remain detained until a hearing on Wednesday.
