The man, named Abrego Garcia, was accused in 2019 of being part of a mobster group, but the US courts later lifted him and banned his deportation, claiming that he was at risk of reprisals to return to the country.
The administration of US President Donald Trump assumed a “administrative error” in the deportation of a legal immigrant to an El Salvador prison, but in public the vice president labeled him as a criminal.
According to a lawsuit that began on Monday, a salvage that lives legally in the United States on board a flight with hundreds of people accused of belonging to the underworld of the crime.
The man, named Abrego Garcia, was accused in 2019 of being part of a mobster group, but the US courts later lifted him and banned his deportation, claiming that he was at risk of reprisals to return to the country.
In the judicial documents presented on Monday, the US government lawyers acknowledged that Garcia’s deportation was an “administrative error.”
However, they said they had no authority to guarantee their release because the deported was no longer in the United States.
Vice President JD Vance defended the administration on Tuesday in the case of Abrego Garcia, arguing that he was in fact a member of the Mafia Salvadorenha MS-13.
“The media have decided that the real victims are the gangsters we are trying to expel from the country,” Vance wrote on social networks.
Other similar cases
Other similar cases were raised by the US press, with lawyers claiming that their clients were only targeted by tattoos, a characteristic sign of Central America’s mafias.
Since Donald Trump took office in late January, the US government has given priority to the pursuit and deportation of undocumented immigrants, accusing them of being members of criminal gangs.
But the movements that defend illegal immigrants, the Democrats and even some supporters of the Republican president believe that repression has also affected people without any connection with organized crime.
El Salvador receives detainees from other countries
The Trump administration has also deported migrants from various nationalities to other Central American countries, but El Salvador is the only country where the US is sending people to be arrested.
President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, offered to arrest the migrants the US wanted to deport, regardless of nationality, during a February meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Trump stated that Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is invading the United States and invoked the 1798 foreign enemies law, a war standard that allows the president a greater margin of maneuver in executive policies and actions to accelerate mass deportations.
He sent dozens of people to El Salvador before a judge forbids new deportations under the law and the government now asks the Supreme Court to resume the process.
Activists try to lock Trump
Proponents of immigration and civil rights presented lawsuits to prevent Trump management from deporting people to countries other than their own and using the law of foreign enemies.
A federal judge temporarily prevented Trump management on Friday from deporting people to third countries without first being able to argue that this would endanger their safety.
The judge decided that people with final departure orders must have “a significant opportunity” to argue that being sent to a different country from their representing a level of danger considered worthy of protection.
On Sunday, the Trump administration asked the court to reveal its decision.
