Wrongful Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia
A Maryland man with explicit court-ordered protection from deportation was mistakenly deported to El Salvador's CECOT prison. The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 the government must facilitate his return. Trump defied the ruling for months.
In March 2025, Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a Maryland resident with a court order explicitly barring his removal to El Salvador due to safety concerns — was deported there and imprisoned at CECOT, El Salvador's notorious mega-prison.
The administration admitted the deportation was an error. ICE acknowledged that Abrego Garcia's protected status was not on the flight manifest. An immigration judge had specifically ruled he could not be sent to El Salvador.
The case reached the Supreme Court, which ruled 9-0 that the government "must facilitate" his return — a unanimous decision including all of Trump's own appointees. Despite this unequivocal ruling, the administration defied it for months, arguing it could not compel El Salvador to release him.
Abrego Garcia was eventually brought back to the United States, but the case became a landmark example of executive defiance of judicial authority. NPR reporting found he was the first in a pattern of mistaken deportations — people removed from the country despite having legal protections against exactly that.