Calling it an “oversight” through “administrative error,” the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement admitted this week that it had mistakenly deported a Maryland father to a prison in El Salvador, according to a court filing.

However, the Trump administration now says the federal courts in the U.S. lack the power to have the man returned.

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia — a Salvadoran residing in Beltsville with his spouse, who is a U.S. citizen, and their 5-year-old special-needs child — was deported from the United States on March 15 despite a grant of formal protection from an immigration judge six years ago.

CASA, a national organization serving working-class Black, Latino, African-descendant, Indigenous, and immigrant communities, decried the improper deportation of one of its members as a “violation of a court order and at grave personal danger” to Abrego Garcia, who is now reportedly in a notorious Salvadoran prison.

Abrego Garcia was a unionized sheet metal worker trying to advance his career by enrolling in a college course to obtain a professional license, according to CASA’s statement issued Tuesday. The family was also seeking specialized care for their autistic, non-verbal son, who was on a waiting list at Children’s Hospital.

“His sudden disappearance has left them in anguish, disrupting their plans and jeopardizing their well-being,” CASA said.

Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer, told CASA her husband is an “excellent” father, according to a statement from the civil rights organization.

“He has always been there for our three children and all of their needs. Two of them are on the autism spectrum, and our third has epilepsy,” she said according to CASA. He has been the main provider for their household and the “love of her life” for more than seven years, she added, according to the statement.

“Since our family has been separated, I have been devastated and confused. I lost my life partner, my children lost their father, and all of our family, neighbors, co-workers, and friends have been devastated due to this unjust family separation,” she said.

Abrego Garcia’s union, SMART Local 100, described the first-year apprentice as a devoted father. The union said Abrego Garcia came to the country 15 years ago as a teenager.

“In his pursuit of the life promised by the American dream, Brother Kilmar was literally helping to build this great country. What did he get in return? Arrest and deportation to a nation whose prisons face outcry from human rights organizations. SMART condemns his treatment in the strongest possible terms, and we demand his rightful return,” SMART General President Michael Coleman wrote in a release.

Abrego Garcia was on one of three planes of mostly Venezuelans sent from the U.S. to El Salvador as part of a Trump administration crackdown on immigrants allegedly in the country without authorization. (His first name was spelled as “Kilmer” in the signed declaration by ICE acting field officer director Robert Cerna, but his name here is based on information from his attorney.)

ICE officers stopped Abrego Garcia on March 12 while he was driving with his son in the car, according to a court filing. They handcuffed him and called his wife to come pick up their child or risk his being handed over to Child Protective Services, according to the document filed by his attorney.

Agents told Abrego Garcia, who had been granted “withholding of removal” in 2019, that “his status has changed,” his attorneys allege.

Only an immigration judge, not the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, can grant withholding of removal, which has a higher bar to clear than asylum. Applicants must demonstrate that it is more likely than not that they will face persecution in their home country if they are deported.

In March 2019, Abrego Garcia was looking for work outside a Home Depot when he was arrested by local police. He was then handed over to ICE based on allegations that he was a member of MS-13. A month later, an immigration judge declined to release Abrego Garcia on bond, stating that he was a flight risk and “verified gang member” of MS-13.

Abrego Garcia contended that he was wrongly detained in connection to a murder investigation after being approached because he and others were loitering outside of a Home Depot.

A Maryland court record search did not find any criminal cases linked to Abrego Garcia’s name. In a court filing, his attorney says that he has “no affiliation” with any gang and that the U.S. government “has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation.”

His attorney is asking the Department of Homeland Security to request the Salvadoran government release Abrego Garcia and deliver him to the U.S. embassy in El Salvador.

People are only eligible for asylum, a protection that offers a pathway to citizenship, if they apply within one year of entering the United States. A judge determined Abrego Garcia ineligible for asylum because he had resided in the U.S. for years. But his status known as “withholding of removal,” a less-generous protection considered alongside asylum, does not have a similar time restriction for eligibility.

El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele has been on a yearslong crackdown of the nation’s notorious gangs. Supporters say his “state of exception” has brought a sense of peace to streets long plagued by violence and extortion — and has skyrocketed his approval rating. But critics say he has done so at the cost of certain civil liberties.

Bukele has locked up tens of thousands of people in the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, and has begun holding certain deportees from the United States there.

Abrego Garcia’s approval to stay in the U.S. was granted based on threats of persecution from Salvadoran gangs.

In a joint statement, Maryland Senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks called Abrego Garcia’s deportation “unacceptable” and said the Trump administration “must take immediate action to right this wrong.” Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown also criticized the Trump administration’s error in the case.

“This outrageous mistake is what happens when inhumane and incompetent governing is coupled with this Administration’s contempt for immigrants,” Brown said in a statement Tuesday. Abrego Garcia is “a Marylander, and he belongs in Maryland with his family, not stuck in a dangerous prison in El Salvador.”

Trump administration officials on Tuesday acknowledged the deportation error but Vice President JD Vance and others in the administration defended the outcome, repeating the allegation that Abrego Garcia is a gang member.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement that the state’s law enforcement personnel work in partnership with federal law enforcement to root out violent crime.

But Moore added that “we can be pro-public safety and pro-Constitution at the same time. It’s outrageous that due process means nothing to the federal administration. No one should be deported to the very country where a judge determined they will face persecution.

“The federal government has admitted to making an error, and I urge them to correct it.”

Requests for comment from ICE were not immediately returned.

Banner reporter Brenda Wintrode contributed to this story