A day after a federal court docket sought particulars on the standing of a Maryland man who was deported in error to El Salvador, the State Division instructed a decide that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is “alive and safe” however nonetheless not on American soil.
“It’s my understanding based mostly on official reporting from our Embassy in San Salvador that Abrego Garcia is at present being held within the Terrorism Confinement Middle in El Salvador,” stated Michael Kozak, a senior bureau official for the State Division, in a declaration submitted on Saturday minutes after the 5 p.m. deadline set by the decide.
“He’s alive and safe in that facility,” Kozak added. “He’s detained pursuant to the sovereign, home authority of El Salvador.”
This undated photograph supplied by CASA, an immigrant advocacy group, in April 2025, exhibits Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
CASA by way of AP
The Supreme Court docket had ordered the U.S. authorities “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to America.
President Donald Trump weighed in on the court docket order on Friday whereas speaking with reporters, claiming he wasn’t effectively versed within the case. Nonetheless, he reiterated his respect for the Supreme Court docket, which had upheld a decrease court docket’s ruling that the U.S. authorities ought to help in returning Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
“If the Supreme Court docket stated deliver anyone again, I’d try this. I respect the Supreme Court docket,” he stated.
Shortly earlier than the federal government submitted its first standing report back to the court docket, attorneys for Abrego Garcia filed a movement for added reduction and cited Trump’s feedback.
“Yesterday, President Trump confirmed that america has the facility to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s launch from jail and return to america,” the attorneys for Abrego Garcia wrote.
Within the submitting, the attorneys for the Maryland man requested three further forms of reduction, together with ordering the federal government to indicate why it shouldn’t be held in contempt “as a result of its failure to adjust to the Court docket’s prior orders.”
“The President’s acknowledgement of america’ energy to deliver Abrego Garcia again however, the Division of Justice and different Authorities businesses proceed to withstand this Court docket and the Supreme Court docket,” they added.
The attorneys additionally requested the decide to order the federal government to offer air transportation for Abrego Garcia to return to Maryland and to grant him parole.
In a written order earlier this week, Decide Paula Xinis of the U.S. District Court docket for the District of Maryland had requested the every day standing report back to reply what steps, if any, the Trump administration has taken to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s quick return to the U.S. and what further steps the federal government will take, and when, to facilitate his return.
Whereas Kozak’s sworn declaration solutions one of many questions Xinis requested, the response didn’t present any extra particulars about Abrego Garcia’s return.
Abrego Garcia, regardless of being issued a 2019 court docket order barring his deportation to El Salvador, the place his attorneys argue he escaped political violence in 2011, was despatched to that nation’s infamous CECOT mega-prison following what the federal government stated was an “administrative error,” in response to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official.
A policeman guards a cell on the Terrorism Confinement Middle (Cecot) in Tecoluca, El Salvador, April 4, 2025.
Jose Cabezas/Reuters
The Trump administration has claimed Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang, which his legal professionals and his spouse deny, and argued in authorized filings that as a result of Abrego Garcia is not in U.S. custody, the courts can not order him to be returned to the U.S. nor order El Salvador to return him.
Xinis ordered the federal government to assist in returning Abrego Garcia to the U.S., which the Supreme Court docket then upheld on Thursday.
“The order correctly requires the Authorities to ‘facilitate’ Garcia’s launch from custody in El Salvador and to make sure that his case is dealt with as it might have been had he not been improperly despatched to El Salvador,” the Supreme Court docket’s unsigned order said.