White House Defends Deportation of Salvadoran Man Despite Legal Protections as "Administrative Error"

Guards escort a newly admitted inmate inside a cell at CECOT on March 16, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador.

The White House has responded forcefully to questions surrounding the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who had sought asylum in the United States and was granted protected legal status. Despite this designation, Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador, where he has since been incarcerated, raising concerns over due process and government accountability.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the deportation, stating that Abrego Garcia was a leader of the MS-13 gang and had engaged in human trafficking. "Foreign terrorists do not have legal protections in the United States of America anymore, and it is within the President's executive authority and power to deport these heinous individuals from American communities," she said.

However, just a day earlier, Justice Department lawyers admitted in a court filing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had mistakenly arrested and deported Abrego Garcia despite being aware of his legal status. Court documents confirm that he had been granted "withholding of removal" in 2019 after an immigration judge ruled that he would likely be targeted for persecution and torture if returned to El Salvador. Abrego Garcia, who has no criminal record in the United States, is married to an American citizen and has a five-year-old special needs child.

U.S. claims it can’t seek man’s freedom from notorious Salvadorian prison because it no longer has custody over him

The Trump administration has characterized his deportation and subsequent incarceration in El Salvador’s CECOT prison as an "administrative error" that cannot be reversed, citing the government's inability to compel his return despite the close relationship between former President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.

When asked about this admission during a press briefing, Leavitt maintained that Abrego Garcia was an MS-13 member and asserted that “credible intelligence” linked him to human trafficking. She did not provide further details to substantiate the claim.

The controversy escalated further when Vice President JD Vance took to social media, attacking a journalist who pointed out that Abrego Garcia had never been convicted of any crime but had been accused of gang affiliation by an informant in 2019. Vance attempted to justify the deportation by citing Abrego Garcia’s alleged traffic violations and failure to appear in court, sarcastically referring to him as “a real winner.”

Men arrive at the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador, in an image released on March 31.

Pressed for further justification during the press briefing, Leavitt avoided providing additional evidence to support the administration’s assertions. Instead, she criticized media coverage of the case, particularly an article from The Atlantic, for failing to describe Abrego Garcia as "an illegal criminal who broke our nation's immigration laws."

“These are vicious criminals. This is a vicious gang, and I wish that the media would spend just a second of the same time you have spent trying to litigate each and every individual of this gang who has been deported from our country as the innocent Americans whose lives have been lost at the hands of these brutal criminals,” Leavitt said.

The case has drawn significant attention, raising broader questions about due process in immigration enforcement, the accuracy of gang-related designations, and the implications of deporting individuals granted legal protection.