Trump Administration Admits Maryland Man Sent To El Salvador By Mistake

The Trump administration is getting blowback for confirmed and potential errors in its rush to deport hundreds of men to El Salvador last month, NPR reports. On Monday night, immigration officials admitted to deporting a Maryland man to El Salvador due to an "administrative error." Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who lived with his U.S. citizen wife and child, was identified as being on one of the three deportation flights to El Salvador last month that are the subject of several lawsuits. Immigration advocates claim those flown to El Salvador did not receive due process. The administration used the three flights to quickly deport over three hundred men it accused of being members of MS-13, a gang with connections to El Salvador that originated in Los Angeles, and Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang. They were later moved to CECOT, a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.

One of them was Abrego Garcia, who his wife identified through photos released by the El Salvadoran government. "The government's filing was pretty shocking because they admitted everything that we alleged," Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, the lawyer representing Abrego Garcia and his family, told NPR.

Although Justice Department lawyers acknowledge the mistake in Abrego Garcia's case, they say there is nothing federal officials can do because he is now in custody of another country. And White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday doubled down on his deportation, pointing to his links to MS-13 — which Abrego Garcia's lawyers dispute. This latest case adds to the growing judicial scrutiny about the deportations, and has even prompted some consternation from one of Trump's allies. Joe Rogan, the popular host of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast who endorsed Trump last year, this week raised concerns with potential errors in the El Salvador deporations. "It's hard to know what's real and what's not real, but if it is real this is f****** horrible," Rogan said in his latest episode, when discussing the case of Venezuelan makeup artist Andry. Andry's lawyer argues he was a legal asylum seeker who was deported.