April 4 (UPI) — A Friday hearing is set for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father mistakenly deported by the Trump Administration to a supermax prison in El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said, despite the mistake no government efforts have been made to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.
“Every other time that that happened, as soon as I essentially convinced them that they messed up. Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, bent over backward to try to fix it. Right now, they haven’t taken a single step.”
Abrego Garcia, who has not been charged with a crime, has sued federal officials maintaining that a judge’s 2019 protection order should have prevented his deportation.
“Not only was plaintiff Abrego Garcia removed to El Salvador in direct violation of federal law, but to make matters worse, defendants are paying the government of El Salvador a sum of money to incarcerate him in the infamous CECOT prison, where he is being subjected to torture and an imminent risk of death,” his attorneys said in their petition.
The hearing in Greenbelt, Md., is set for 1 p.m. EDT Friday.
Abrego Garcia’s wife Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, tearfully spoke to her imprisoned husband while addressing reporters ahead of Friday’s hearing.
“Kilmar, if you can hear me, I miss you so much,” she said. “And I’m doing the best to fight for you and our children.
In a Monday statement ICE field office director Robert Cerna said the removal of Garcia “was an error.”
Attorneys for Abrego Garcia have said that he is not a member of “Tren de Aragua, MS-13, or any other criminal street gang” and fled El Salvador to the United States to escape gang violence, adding the Trump administration has not been able to produce “an iota of evidence” proving he is a gang member.
The administration has countered that Abrego Garcia “had the opportunity to give evidence tending to show he was not part of MS-13, which he did not proffer.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem toured the facility last month and delivered remarks in front of a cell holding men detained there, whose heads were shaved and stood shirtless.
