The Trump administration published documents on Wednesday that revealed new details In the case of Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland man deported to El Salvador a month ago in what a government lawyer called an “administrative error.”
The documents were released after weeks of pressure on the government to demonstrate his statement that Abrego García was a member of the MS-13 gang. The Trump administration sent it to a notorious Megaprison in the Central American country as part of its promised deportation program of alleged criminals.
The Department of Justice shared records, it was not previously made public, which detailed how police officers in Maryland evaluated that Abrego García was a member of the MS-13 gang during an arrest in 2019. He had no criminal record at that time, which the documents also indicate, and his lawyers have denied that he is a member of the gang.
In a document entitled “Gang field interviews”, Prince George County Police Department explained how in March 2019 he approached Abrego García along with three other people for locking in an Home Depot parking lot in Hyattsville. Abrego García said in a judicial presentation that he was there looking for daily work.
Police said he wore “a Bulls Chicago hat and a hoodie with rolls of money that cover their eyes, ears and mouth of the presidents” in the invoices.
The officers said that such a badge, who indicates “see, hear, and shut up” or “do not look bad, do not listen badly and do not say badly”, it was “indicative of the culture of Hispanic gangs.” The officers said they consulted with a reliable confidential source, who “advised that [Abrego Garcia] It is the range of ‘check’ with the nickname of ‘Chele’ “in the gang.
Abrego García was delivered to the immigration authorities, and made its way through the legal process. Later, in 2019, an immigration judge prevented him from being sent to El Salvador. The order said it showed that it had a “well -founded fear of future persecution” of local gangs, and a retention of extraction to the country was granted, which allowed it to stay in the United States temporarily and receive a work permit.
Years later, in 2025, immigration agents arrested Abrego García in an Ikea parking lot. He was deported to El Salvador days later, on March 15.
The Supreme Court ruled last week that the government must “facilitate” its release from prison. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said at a meeting at the White House this week that he would not free Abrego García.
In response to the social media publications of the DHS on Wednesday, their lawyers said: “This statement underlines the importance of due process, access to the lawyer and the government’s obligation to comply with the unanimous decision of the United States Supreme Court.”
The Secretary of National Security, Kristi Noem, said in a statement on Wednesday: “We listen too much in the main media about stories of gangs’ sobs and illegal criminal and not enough about their victims.”
Police determined during the 2019 arrest that two other people who were with Abrego García in the Home Depot Parking were gang members, citing a man’s criminal history and The tattoos of another man, as well as the information of an unidentified person who was a “source of past and reliable information.”
The documents say that the four men said they were citizens of El Salvador and that they were “present in the United States illegally” and that they did not have immigration documents on them.
Another document published on Wednesday, from the Department of National Security in 2019, said the police identified two men, one of whom was Abrego García, since he was previously arrested in a murder investigation. Abrego García denied having been connected to a murder investigation, the documents say, and was never accused.
A document page includes a contradiction: at one point it says that Abrego García did not claim the fear of returning to his country, but then says he did say the fear of returning to El Salvador.
The document said Abrego García said he had presented sufficient evidence to refute the accusation of gangs, including character references and his lack of criminal record, less traffic crimes.
In another document from the Executive Office of Immigration Review of the Department of Justice, a court agreed to deny Abrego García’s link after his arrest outside the Home Depot in 2019 and wrote that the accusation that he is a member of a gang “seems to be reliable and is supported by other evidence in the registry” in the documents of the Police of the County of Prince George.
“The reason for the arrest of the respondent granted in its 1-213 form appears in disagreement with the gang field interviews, which establishes that it was addressed to the respondent because he and others were robbing outside Home Depot,” said the document, but added that he still found that the accusations of his gang membership were supported.
Abrego García replied that “there is no reliable evidence in the registry to support” that he is a member of MS-13 and that the accusation “is based on rumors transmitted by a confidential source.”
In addition to the new documents, the Department of National Security published on social networks on the early Wednesday that Abrego García’s wife had sought a temporary protection order against him in 2021. The case was finally dismissed. Abrego García’s wife, Jennifer Vásquez Sura, has been a firm and vocal defender of her husband and has fought for her return.
“After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted as a precaution after a disagreement with Kilmar when looking for a civil protection order in case things intensify,” said Vásquez Sura in a statement on Wednesday. “Things did not intensify, and I decided not to follow the civil court process.
“No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect. That is not a justification for ICE’s action to kidnap and deport it to a country where it was supposed to be protected from deportation,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration, Abrego García’s lawyers and a judge of the Court of Appeals continue to litigate the instructions of the Supreme Court that the Government facilitates its release.
The Trump Administration on Wednesday presented an appeal of the Order of the United States District Judge, Paula Xinis, last Thursday to the 4th Court of Appeals of the United States Circuit, in which it ordered the Trump administration to “take all available measures to facilitate the return of Abrego García to the United States as soon as possible.”
Xinis questioned the evidence that an immigration judge used to determine that Abrego García is a member of a gang. She said in a ruling that he has no criminal record in the United States or El Salvador and that the “‘evidence’ against Abrego García consisted only of his hat and hoodie of Chicago Bulls, and a vague and without corroborating allegation of a confidential informant who affirms that he belonged to the ‘western’ of MS-1 in New York, a place that has never lived.”
Xinis said Tuesday that he was considering the contempt procedures against the Trump administration.
She had ordered the Government to provide evidence of the efforts she has taken to “facilitate” the liberation of Abrego García, and on Tuesday he criticized the lack of response from the government.
“I have not received anything,” Xinis said. “I have not received a real answer or a real legal justification for not responding.”
In an update of the daily state ordered by the Court, the general advisor of the DHS, Joseph Mazzara, wrote: “Given the prior and unequivocal notice of the government government to the court on how the Government will facilitate the return of Abrego García within the existing law and regulation counters, there are no more updates.”
