US admits deportation ‘error’ as alarm deepens over Trump policy
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Alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, deported by the US government, are seen in a Terrorism Confinement Centre in El Salvador.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON - Donald Trump’s hardline immigrant policy faced fresh scrutiny on April 1 after officials admitted an “administrative error” in the hurried deportation process had sent a man to a notorious El Salvador prison.
The Trump administration touts its sweeping drive against migrants
But mounting claims that a number of individuals have flimsy or no connection to organised crime has prompted anger among rights groups, Democrats and even some Trump allies, including the influential podcaster Joe Rogan.
A court filing on March 31 said a Salvadoran man was living in the United States under protected legal status until he was flown to El Salvador with hundreds of other alleged gang members earlier this month.
The flights came just hours after Mr Trump invoked a rarely used wartime power, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, and despite a judge ordering a halt to the deportations.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was accused of being a gang member in 2019 but not convicted of any crime, and a judge had previously ordered he should not be deported because he could be harmed in El Salvador.
In a March 31 court filing, government lawyers admitted he had been deported in an “administrative error,” but argued US courts did not now have jurisdiction to secure his release.
Pressed on the issue on April 2, the White House was defiant, claiming unreleased evidence showed Abrego Garcia was “actually a leader of the brutal MS-13 gang.”
The Salvadoran group and others, such as Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, have been declared “foreign terrorist organizations” by Mr Trump.
“Foreign terrorists do not have legal protections in the United States of America anymore and it is within the president’s executive authority and power to deport these heinous individuals from American communities,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told a briefing.
A separate reported case of a gay barber being deported has attracted US media attention, and attorneys for several deportees say their clients were targeted only because of their tattoos.
Mr Rogan, who backed Trump in the 2024 election, said on March 29 it was “horrific” that innocent people could be swept up in the push to deport gang members.
“You got to get scared that people who are not criminals are getting lassoed up and deported and sent to El Salvador prisons,” said the comedian and mixed martial arts commentator.
“Let’s get the gang members out. Everybody agrees. But let’s not (see) innocent gay hairdressers get lumped up with the gangs.”
Vice-President J.D. Vance weighed in on the issue on April 1 on social media, but made multiple clarifications after including errors in his posts.
After first calling Abrego Garcia a “convicted MS-13 gang member,” he later said an immigration judge “determined” he was in MS-13 and that “whatever ‘due process’ he was entitled to, he received.”
The invocation of the centuries old Alien Enemies Act has spurred heated legal debates over migrants’ rights to due process and the extent of judicial review over executive actions.
On March 28, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to overturn the federal judge’s halt on deportations under the authority.
Mr Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, a fierce opponent of illegal immigration, has repeatedly blasted the judge’s actions as a threat to democracy.
“Friendly reminder: If you illegally invaded our country the only ‘process’ you are entitled to is deportation,” he said Tuesday on social media. AFP
