ISTANBUL

The Trump administration’s decision to deport a man from the state of Maryland to a prison in El Salvador prison was a "grievous error," a US federal judge said in a new court filing.

Judge Paula Xinis has ordered the Trump administration to arrange for Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return from a notorious prison in El Salvador by Monday, rejecting the government's bid to pause the order during its appeal, ABC News reported on Monday.

"As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador – let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere," Xinis wrote in the Sunday legal filing.

In 2019, an immigration judge granted Abrego Garcia a withholding of removal order, preventing the government from deporting him to his home country due to his fear of gang-related persecution.

In a sworn declaration filed on March 31, a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official acknowledged that an "administrative error" resulted in Abrego Garcia – who is married to a US citizen – being deported to El Salvador, flouting the 2019 order.

Xinis said placing Abrego Garcia in the El Salvador mega-prison despite the "risk of harm shocks the conscience."

"Defendants have forcibly put him in a facility that intentionally mixes rival gang members without any regard for protecting the detainees from 'harm at the hands of the gangs,'" she wrote.

"Defendants have claimed – without any evidence – that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13 and then housed him among the chief rival gang, Barrio 18. Not to mention that Barrio 18 is the very gang whose years-long persecution of Abrego Garcia resulted in his withholding from removal to El Salvador," she added.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have insisted that he is not a member of, nor affiliated with, Tren de Aragua, MS-13, or any other criminal or street gang. They also argued that the Trump administration has never presented any evidence "to support this unfounded accusation."

In Sunday’s filing, Xinis said the government has failed to provide any evidence indicating that they cannot facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return. She also noted that the court maintains jurisdiction over the case because Abrego Garcia is challenging his deportation to El Salvador, "not the fact of confinement."

Xinis also argued that while the legal justification for the Trump administration’s decision to deport over 200 alleged gang members to El Salvador "remains disturbingly unclear," there is no legal basis for Abrego Garcia’s inclusion in that group.

"Nor does any evidence suggest that Abrego Garcia is being held in CECOT [prison] at the behest of Salvadoran authorities to answer for crimes in that country. Rather, his detention appears wholly lawless," the judge added.