Did US courts back Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s El Salvador deportation?

President Donald Trump’s April 14 public meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele centred on the mistaken deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.

Trump administration officials and Bukele said Abrego Garcia would not be returned to the US, four days after the US Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration must facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.

On March 15, the US government deported Abrego Garcia to CECOT, a Salvadoran mega-prison where Trump has sent hundreds of Salvadoran and Venezuelan men who were previously in the US. But Abrego Garcia had protection that was supposed to prevent him from being deported to El Salvador. The Justice Department called Abrego Garcia’s deportation an “oversight” and “an administrative error” in a court filing.

During the Oval Office meeting, Bukele and several Trump administration officials made misleading statements about Abrego Garcia’s case and the role the US and El Salvador’s governments are playing in his potential return.

Here are the facts.

That’s what Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed. “In 2019, two courts, an immigration court and an appellate immigration court, ruled that (Abrego Garcia) was a member of MS-13,” she said at the White House.

This needs context. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Abrego Garcia in 2019 as he was looking for day labour outside a Home Depot store in Maryland. A police informant told police Abrego Garcia was an MS-13 member. Immigration judges denied Abrego Garcia bond, both initially and on appeal, citing the informant’s accusation.

In the initial denial, the judge said the determination of Abrego Garcia’s gang membership “appears to be trustworthy and is supported” by evidence from the Gang Field Interview Sheet which, in part, referenced the informant. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have repeatedly said in court that the informant’s accusation was fabricated.

The immigration judges’ decision to deny bond is not equivalent to ruling that Abrego Garcia was a gang member, David Bier, associate director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said.