Timeline: The Case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia
Despite court rulings, the Trump Administration shows no interest in helping Abrego Garcia return to the U.S.; El Salvador's president calls releasing him "preposterous"
With research assistance from James Rushmore
With President Trump sitting next to him, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that no, he is not going to release Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia from his country’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), despite a Justice Department lawyer admitting in a court filing that Abrego Garcia’s deportation last month was an “administrative error.”
No matter, said Bukele:
Bukele: Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.
Reporter: But you could release him inside El Salvador.
Bukele: Yeah, but I’m not releasing, I mean, I’m not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country. We just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country in the Western hemisphere, and you want us to go back into releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world? That’s not going to happen.
There was little doubt what Bukele would say. Attorney General Pam Bondi set the tone early on in the meeting. She explained what the Supreme Court meant last week when it said a lower court ruling “properly requires the government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.”
The Supreme Court ruled, [Mr.] President, that if El Salvador wants to return him … we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.
It brings to mind President Clinton’s infamous grand jury testimony when he said: “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
Abrego-Garcia left El Salvador and illegally entered the U.S. in 2011. His status as an illegal immigrant changed after he was arrested in 2019 and the Department of Homeland Security accused him of being a member of the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia fought the accusation and applied for asylum. Instead, an immigration judge granted him “withholding of removal” status.
A federal judge wrote in an April 6 opinion that in El Salvador “the Barrio 18 gang had been targeting him and threatening him with death because of his family’s pupusa business.”
The Justice Department argues its hands are tied. It doesn’t matter that the U.S. is paying El Salvador $6 million a year to house U.S. deportees at CECOT.
“The United States does not have control over Abrego Garcia. Or the sovereign nation of El Salvador,” says one court filing.
Below is a timeline of the case since Abrego Garcia was arrested last month, leading up to Monday’s Oval Office meeting with Bukele.
March 12-15, 2025
ICE agents stop Abrego Garcia and tell him that he is no longer under “withholding of removal” status. The Trump administration says he is a member of the MS-13 gang, which the president has designated a foreign terrorist organization.
Abrego Garcia, who denies he is part of MS-13, is sent to an ICE detention facility in La Villa, Texas, and from there he is deported to El Salvador on March 15 along with 260 others, primarily Venezuelan nationals. He is being held in CECOT, a prison that has a capacity of 40,000 inmates.
March 24, 2025
Abrego Garcia and his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, file a lawsuit that notes Abrego Garcia has been in the U.S. legally since 2019 under withholding of removal status, and that the designation was never lifted.
They also accuse the government of sending Abrego Garcia to El Salvador despite “knowing that he would be immediately incarcerated and tortured in that country’s most notorious prison; indeed, Defendants have paid the government of El Salvador millions of dollars to do exactly that. Such conduct shocks the conscience and cries out for immediate judicial relief.”
The lawsuit requests the court order the U.S. government to tell the government of El Salvador to release and deliver Abrego Garcia to the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador.
March 31, 2025
The Justice Department acknowledges in a court filing that “although ICE was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador because of an administrative error.”
Still, the Justice Department argues the motion should be denied because the court “has no power” over El Salvador. Justice Department attorneys argue:
Under their (plaintiffs) logic, this Court may assume jurisdiction to decide whether the order is legal, but if the order were determined legal, then jurisdiction would disappear again.
The government also says there’s no proof that Abrego Garcia will be tortured or killed in CECOT:
Plaintiffs point to little evidence about conditions in CECOT itself (focusing primarily on its capacity for detainees), instead extrapolating from allegations about conditions in different Salvadoran prisons. While there may be allegations of abuses in other Salvadoran prisons—very few in relation to the large number of detainees—there is no clear showing that Abrego Garcia himself is likely to be tortured or killed in CECOT. More fundamentally, this Court should defer to the government’s determination that Abrego Garcia will not likely be tortured or killed in El Salvador.
April 4, 2025
U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis orders the Trump Administration to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. by 11:59 p.m., April 7. She writes:
Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits because Abrego Garcia was removed to El Salvador In violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act…and without any legal process; his continued presence in El Salvador, for obvious reasons, constitutes irreparable harm; the balance of equities and the public interest weigh in favor of returning him to the United States; and issuance of a preliminary injunction without further delay is necessary to restore him to the status quo and to avoid ongoing irreparable harm resulting from Abrego Garcia’s unlawful removal.
April 5, 2025
The Justice Department appeals the order, calling it “indefensible” that “a federal district judge ordered the United States to force El Salvador to send one of its citizens—a member of MS-13, no less—back to the United States by midnight on Monday. “If there was ever a case for an emergency stay pending appeal, this would be it.”
More from the appellate motion:
Foremost, [the order] commands Defendants to do something they have no independent authority to do: Make El Salvador release Abrego Garcia, and send him to America. That is why Plaintiffs did not even ask the district court for an order directing Abrego Garcia’s return. As Plaintiffs themselves acknowledged, a federal court “has no jurisdiction over the Government of El Salvador and cannot force that sovereign nation to release Plaintiff Abrego Garcia from its prison.” That concession is all that is needed to order a stay here. No federal court has the power to command the Executive to engage in a certain act of foreign relations; that is the exclusive prerogative of Article II, immune from superintendence by Article III.
April 6, 2025
Judge Xinis issues a follow-up memorandum opinion to her April 4 order:
Although the legal basis for the mass removal of hundreds of individuals to El Salvador remains disturbingly unclear, Abrego Garcia’s case is categorically different—there were no legal grounds whatsoever for his arrest, detention, or removal. Nor does any evidence suggest that Abrego Garcia is being held in CECOT at the behest of Salvadoran authorities to answer for crimes in that country. Rather, his detention appears wholly lawless.
The judge also writes that in 2019, Homeland Security “relied principally on a singular unsubstantiated allegation that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13.”
April 7, 2025
A three-judge panel of Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously denies the government’s motion for a stay of Xinis’ order that says Abrego Garcia must be returned to the U.S. by 11:59 p.m. Judge Stephanie Thacker writes:
The United States Government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process. The Government’s contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene, are unconscionable.
The Trump Administration appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, and Chief Justice John Roberts grants an administrative stay to give justices time to consider the case.
Following the stay, Bondi accuses Abrego Garcia of being a “violent gang member” in the video above:
We will continue to fight for the safety of Americans and get these people out of our country to make America safe.
April 10, 2025
The Supreme Court rules against the Trump administration but directs Judge Xinis to “clarify” a portion of her ruling. From the Supreme Court’s decision:
The order properly requires the Government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador. The intended scope of the term “effectuate” in the District Court’s order is, however, unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority. The District Court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs. For its part, the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.
April 11, 2025
If the Supreme Court said, ‘Bring somebody back,’ I would do that. I respect the Supreme Court.
President Trump says that aboard Air Force One a day after the Supreme Court upholds a lower court ruling and says the government should “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.
Meanwhile, Judge Xinis issues a new order that directs the government to “take all available steps to facilitate the return” of Abrego Garcia. In a hearing, she also makes clear her frustration with the Justice Department.
“The record, as it stands, is, despite this court's clear directive, your clients have done nothing to facilitate the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia,” she says.
Xinis also orders the administration to provide daily updates on the status of Abrego Garcia’s return. She also criticizes Justice Department attorneys in her order:
During the hearing, the Court posed straightforward questions, including: Where is Abrego Garcia right now? What steps had Defendants taken to facilitate his return while the Court’s initial order on injunctive relief was in effect…? Defendants’ counsel responded that he could not answer these questions, and at times suggested that Defendants had withheld such information from him. As a result, counsel could not confirm, and thus did not advance any evidence, that Defendants had done anything to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return. This remained Defendants’ position even after this Court reminded them that the Supreme Court of the United States expressly affirmed this Court’s authority to require the Government “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return. From this Court’s perspective, Defendants’ contention that they could not answer these basic questions absent some nonspecific “vetting” that has yet to take place, provides no basis for their lack of compliance.
April 12, 2025
A State Department official reports to the court that Abrego Garcia is “alive and secure” at CECOT. “He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador,” the State Department’s Michael Kozak says in a filing.
However, he does not give an update on the status of Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.
Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys use Trump’s statements aboard Air Force One the previous day to justify a motion for additional relief:
Yesterday, President Trump confirmed that the United States has the power to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from prison and return to the United States: “If the Supreme Court said, ‘Bring somebody back,’ I would do that. ... I respect the Supreme Court.”1 Of course, that is precisely what the Supreme Court did when it ruled that this Court’s injunction “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.
His attorneys ask Judge Xinis to order the government to:
Request El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia.
Dispatch personnel to accompany Abrego Garcia.
Provide air transportation for Abrego Garcia to return to Maryland.
Grant Abrego Garcia parole.
The motion also asks Xinis to order the government to show why it shouldn’t be held in contempt for “failing to comply with this Court’s orders,” and immediately produce documents related to the government’s use of CECOT.
April 14, 2025
The Justice Department puts in writing how it interprets “facilitate” in the Supreme Court’s order:
Defendants understand “facilitate” to mean what that term has long meant in the immigration context, namely actions allowing an alien to enter the United States. Taking “all available steps to facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia is thus best read as taking all available steps to remove any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede the alien’s ability to return here. Indeed, no other reading of “facilitate” is tenable—or constitutional—here.
Any other interpretation, the motion argues, would “violate the separation of powers. The federal courts have no authority to direct the Executive Branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way, or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner.”
April 15, 2025
Judge Xinis approves a request by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys to depose Trump Administration officials to learn how the case has been handled and find out what’s been done to try to get him back to the U.S.
“I do need evidence in this regard because to date what the record shows is nothing has been done,” Xinis said in a hearing.
In her written order, Xinis also made clear what is meant by “facilitate.”
This Court…ordered no more than what the Supreme Court endorsed: that Defendants “take all available steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States as soon as possible,” because bound within this remedy is Abrego Garcia’s “release from custody” and the assurance that Abrego Garcia’s “case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.
Xinis provided definitions from different dictionaries with web links.
The fallacy in the Defendants’ argument is twofold. First, in the “immigration context” as it were, id., facilitating return of those wrongly deported can and has included more extensive governmental efforts, endorsed in prior precedent and DHS publications.1 Thus, the Court cannot credit that “facilitating” the ordered relief is as limited as Defendants suggest.
Second, and more fundamentally, Defendants appear to have done nothing to aid in Abrego Garcia’s release from custody and return to the United States to“ensure that his case is handled as it would have been” but for Defendants’ wrongful expulsion of him. Thus, Defendants’ attempt to skirt this issue by redefining “facilitate” runs contrary to law and logic.
An attorney for Abrego Garcia, Rina Gandhi, says she understands why Xinis didn’t hold Justice Department attorneys in contempt.
“I think that this is a highly politicized case and the judge understood that by doing so it would only raise tempers. Would it have been appropriate? Arguably, yes. But I think it was likely ultimately the right call to actually move this case forward.”
April 16
The case is getting more politicized. U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland flies to El Salvador to meeting with Abrego Garcia. The government denies that request.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security posts documents on X that show Abrego Garcia’s wife sought a domestic violence protective order against him in 2021.
In the video above, Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushes back on the media referring to Abrego Garcia as a “Maryland father.”
The Democrats and the media in this room have continually and wrognly labeled Kilmar Abrego Garcia as a Maryland father. There is no Maryland father. Let me reiterate: Kilmar Abrego Garcia is an illegal alien MS-13 gang member and foreign terrorist who deported back to his home country.
April 17, 2025
Sen. Van Hollen meets with Abrego. After being told no on two consecutive days, El Salavor authorities brought Abrego Garcia to Van Hollen’s hotel.
Van Hollen says that Abrego Garcia told him he was place in a cell at CECOT with about 25 people.
He said he was not afraid of the other prisoners in his immediate cell, but that he was traumatized by being at CECOT and fearful of many of the prisoners in other cell blocks who called out to him and taunted him in various ways.
Abrego Garcia also told him that he was transfered to another prison on April 9 where conditions are better, but:
He said despite the better conditions, he still has no access to any news from the outside world and no ability to commuicate with anybody in the outside world. His conversation with me was the first communication he had with anybody outside a prison since he was abducted. He said he felt very sad about being in a prison because he had not committed any crime.
April 18, 2025
Trumps posts this image and message:
The image Trump post with “MS-13” on it has spurred accusations that it was doctored, in part because the MS-13 symbols were never mentioned in court documents. Judge Xinis wrote in an April 6 memorandum opinion that in 2019, Homeland Security “relied principally on a singular unsubstantiated allegation that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13.”
April 21, 2025
Attorneys for Abrego Garcia say the government is failing to comply with Xinis’ April 15 discovery order and request a conference with Justice Department attorneys. At issue again is the meaning of “facilitate.” Attorneys for both sides give their perspectives in the same letter to Xinis. Abrego Garcia’s attorneys write:
The Government refuses to respond to interrogatories it claims are “based on the false premise that the United States can or has been ordered to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador,” despite the Supreme Court’s clear holding that “[t]he [O]rder properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.”
They also say the government refuses to provide documents “concerning the legal basis for Abrego Garcia’s confinement,” nor provide any information about the administration’s agreement with El Salvador to hold migrants in the country’s prisons.
Justice Department attorneys counter that they’ve made a “good-faith effort” to responds, but object to some requests made by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys.
The insistence on examining “legal basis for Abrego’s confinement”is an absurdity. Upon Abrego’s repatriation to El Salvador, his detention was no longer a matter of the United States’ confinement, but a matter belonging to the government of El Salvador – which has been explained to the Plaintiffs repeatedly. Any requirement of a more detailed response by the Defendants would be wholly inappropriate and an invasion of diplomatic discussions.
April 22, 2025
Judge Xinis issues an order rather than schedule a conference, and she clearly not happy with government attorneys. Her order says:
For weeks, Defendants have sought refuge behind vague and unsubstantiated assertions of privilege, using them as a shield to obstruct discovery and evade compliance with this Court’s orders. Defendants have known, at least since last week, that this Court requires specific legal and factual showings to support any claim of privilege. Yet they have continued to rely on boilerplate assertions. That ends now.”
Xinis set a deadline for 6 p.m. April 23 for the government to provide all requested material.
“Abrego-Garcia left El Salvador and illegally entered the U.S. in 2011.”
Illegal aliens are criminals because they broke the law - 8 U.S. Code § 1325 - when entering America. That is not a good way to begin a path to citizenship by breaking America’s immigration laws and there are ways to citizenship – just ask all of the many legal immigrants who came here legally.
We now have countless angel families who have suffered the loss or harm of a loved one committed by an illegal alien for decades now– aliens who should never have been here in the first place.
So much time reporting on illegal aliens when the real story should be what angel families have endured. Maybe I missed the article on angel families: https://lizlasorte.substack.com/p/borders-and-boundaries-and-freedom?r=76q58
ENOUGH!! Stop pandering to this “Maryland father”. He broke our laws by crossing that border. In any other country this is as clear cut as the day is long they ship you out. I don’t understand for the life of me how this is even being debated. The courts are wrong as the first item should be “crossed the border illegally”. When are the courts going to protect its citizens and stop being political activists. This is a 90/10 issue and if the left wants to die on this hill I say let them. If I do something illegal I doubt I’d get the support of some judge and I’m a blue blooded American with 7 generations behind me. Let’s protect us for once. Jeezus.