Later in 2019, a U.S. immigration judge shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faced persecution there by local gangs that had terrorized his family. The Trump administration deported him there anyway, later describing the mistake as “an administrative error” but insisting he was in MS-13.

A Maryland man’s efforts to return to the US after being mistakenly deported to El Salvador last month hit a major new roadblock on Monday when the country’s president vowed to keep the father of three locked in a notorious mega-prison.

The Trump administration is now claiming that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was not deported by mistake, as the Justice Department stated, but was “the right person sent to the right place.”