A Maryland man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who has a wife and child and was wrongly deported to El Salvador, is alive and still detained in the country at the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, the Trump administration alleged in a filing to a federal judge on Saturday. This fits the legal definition of kidnapping since Garcia has no criminal history and was granted protection in 2019 from being deported due to concerns for his safety if he were to return to El Salvador.
Michael Kozak, a senior official in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, said he is “alive” but will remain at the mega-prison.
“It is my understanding based on official reporting from our Embassy in San Salvador that Abrego Garcia is currently being held in the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador,” Kozak writes. “He is alive and secure in that facility. He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.”
“Based on official reporting,” eh?
