An 'administrative error' sent a Maryland man to an El Salvador prison
158 comments
·April 2, 2025nicpottier
duxup
There's no honesty in the current administration, legal arguments or otherwise.
It's all big talk and false macho garbage and then the next moment victim card when the president complains that people say bad things about him and he needs the legal system to come down on critics ...
rayiner
You’re complaining about lack of honesty, but you’re talking about an article that fails to mention that this guy was ordered deported in 2019 for gang ties after an administrative appeal. Or that this man immigrated illegally in 2011 but didn’t file an asylum claim until 2018. Or that the immigration judge denied his asylum claim.
The information omitted by the AP article completely changes the understanding of what actually happened.
duxup
He was ordered deported because he wore a bulls hat and an anonymous informant claimed he was a member of a gang in a city he never lived in? Is that the basis we're talking about?
jlongr
Who did you vote for in the last election?
johnbronnan
Per the article:
> In its court filing on Monday, the Trump administration said ICE “was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador,” but still deported Abrego Garcia “because of an administrative error.”
He was granted protection from deportation to El Salvador. You seem very concerned about the rule of law except when it's ignored or treated carelessly for immigrants.
nonrandomstring
This is entirely as it is supposed to operate. See Archibald Tuttle [0]. Cowardly, weak little men who would never have the nerve to look another in the eye, are depicted in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" in a different way to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four. Whereas the "Thought Police" of the latter are happy to use violence, the grey bureaucrats of Gilliam's world hide behind malfunctioning machinery which is their unpredictable attack dog. As with weapon dogs it is a vicarious instrument which they claim to have "no control over".
ndsipa_pomu
I feel that Brazil doesn't get enough love. It's my favourite Xmas movie.
milesrout
Once you have deported someone it makes sense that they would no longer be under your jurisdiction. Purely logically: they're no longer within it.
nicpottier
Except the administration is paying for these people to be in the El Salvadoran prison. Also, since when is the administration that uses threats of giant tariffs to accomplish its goals powerless to right these wrongs?
UncleMeat
In my opinion, this should be an 8th amendment violation. "We threw you in a pit forever but its not our pit so your legal protections are void" is not good.
This isn't just flying somebody to their country of origin and leaving them there. This is flying somebody to an unrelated country and the paying a foreign nation to throw them in an overcrowded prison with no oversight for the rest of their lives.
palmotea
> This is flying somebody to an unrelated country and the paying a foreign nation to throw them in an overcrowded prison with no oversight for the rest of their lives.
That's true of most of the people the Trump administration are sending to CECOT in El Salvador, but not the guy the article is about:
> Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. illegally from El Salvador around 2011, “fleeing gang violence,” according to his lawyers, and made his way to Maryland to join his older brother, a U.S. citizen.
timcobb
Right, but if you've been following the situation since the current administration took office, you would know that if they want something, they're not shy to ask.
amarcheschi
Nor it is reasonable to not have processes to get back someone if they're wrongfully deported. Moving fast and breaking things is not acceptable when you're dealing with people's lifes - and i somehow think if a rich white man were to be deported by mistake, he would be brought back quite fast
QuantumGood
Backend thought exercise: Do you think they could get back someone they wanted to get back, such as a member of the administration? Do you think they could follow a process that made it easier to get people back?
null
giraffe_lady
They got andrew tate out of a foreign prison without much trouble so it's just about priorities I think.
rayiner
He’s an El Salvadoran citizen! He’s in prison because El Salvador believes he’s an MS-13 gang member. If he believes he’s being held wrongfully in El Salvador he can avail himself of the legal procedures of his country. This has nothing to do with the U.S.
itishappy
Got a source on El Salvador's position? The article states the MS-13 claims come from the US and are unsubstantiated:
> The allegations about his affiliation with MS-13 stem from a 2019 arrest outside a Maryland Home Depot store, where he and other young men were looking for work, according to the complaint.
They also claim he had legal protections from being deported specifically to El Salvador:
> An immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s asylum request in October 2019 but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador.
> In its court filing on Monday, the Trump administration said ICE “was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador,” but still deported Abrego Garcia “because of an administrative error.”
This is the part that concerns the US. Also the part where this is all being paid for by American tax dollars.
rayiner
Yes, the “administrative error” relates to the narrow point about the supposed “protection from deportation.” He was ordered deported for gang ties, upheld after an administrative appeal. And his asylum claim was denied. The article omits the information about the immigration judge and Board of Immigration Appeals finding that he was deportable for being an MS13 member, making it seem like the “administrative error” was about that.
There is no legitimate reason for any El Salvadoran citizen to receive asylum in the U.S. The country is now safer than Canada. If this guy thinks he is being unlawfully detained, he can avail himself of the legal procedures of his own country.
duxup
> The evidence they cited included his wearing of a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie and a confidential informant’s claim that Abrego Garcia belonged to MS-13’s “Westerns clique” in Long Island, New York, despite having never lived there.
Some pretty flimsy evidence…
And all this time this guy was what? Working and being productive like anyone else…
pavlov
Eliminate due process and you don't need evidence.
Vibes-based justice is back. AI-driven deportations next?
renewiltord
[flagged]
darioush
just an example of bureaucracy at work.
this what happens when you centralize all decision making to people who have no local knowledge of the community they are administrating, and predicate their jobs on following a checklist, usually as implemented by buggy software, instead of making a judgement call based on experience and circumstances.
yapyap
If you go by the Marriam Websters definition of fascism this is getting pretty close.
> Fascism : a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition
Tadpole9181
As if this has anything to do with locality? Rulers of parcels of land small enough you could see it all from a single hill have been utter despots before. Heck, just look at how some parents treat their children.
This is what happens when you elect a convicted felon, rapist, bullying loser compromised by the Russian state who outright says he wants to be a dictator and he puts sycophants and bullies into positions of power to do exactly that.
Saying this is about local vs nonlocal governance is nothing more than shirking the responsibility of 70,000,000 Americans who wanted this and 100,000,000 Americans who couldn't be bothered to stop it.
ckemere
I do think that there’s an aspect of small government that connects those 70M to their government in a way that large scale federalization may fail to do. Not sure how to achieve benefits of scale without this problem…
nness
Reminds me of all the Guantanamo Bay detainees that were suspected and held for just wearing a Casio F-91W digital watch...
rayiner
“Working and being productive” is not a sufficient basis for being allowed to remain in the U.S.
duxup
How about being a legal resident?
Either way I think it speaks to the effectiveness / end result of policy where you take someone working and being productive, paying taxes … and then expend government resources to prevent that (and apparently do a poor job at that even).
rayiner
He’s not a “legal resident” he was ordered deported, after review by a judge and by the Board of Immigration Appeals.
rayiner
He’s undisputedly in the country illegally, and both an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration appeals ordered his deportation for suspected gang ties: https://www.wmar2news.com/infocus/family-of-alleged-gang-mem... (“Other court documents show an immigration judge ordered Abrego-Garcia to be removed from the U.S. back in April 2019 over his alleged gang ties.”)
technothrasher
Did you miss the part where the same judge that authorized his deportation, also specified it to be somewhere other than El Salvador? It's right in the same article you quoted. That is central to the ICE screw up. It's not that they deported him, but that they ignored the court's ruling to not deport him to El Salvador, because they're ignoring due process and rushing things for political points.
ty6853
Was that a real judge in the judicial branch or one of those 'judges' in the executive branch kangaroo courts?
croes
mystraline
[Meta]
I think this shows the worst part of HN. You can have thoughtful and interesting discussions 100+ comments and wider. But when a few people are triggered, they feel that they want to ruin the discussion for everybody else. Whereas they could have closed the tab, and move on.
No clue how to solve it at a wider scale. For me? I just don't engage in topics I don't care about. No need to force my views on others.
Update: it took 5 minutes for this article to also be flagged. Sigh.
ajb
I agree.
Maybe to flag, you should have to click 'hide' first, and be angry enough that you then go and look it up in the hidden list to flag it.
It's short sighted, when this kind of thing comes banging on their door, they won't be able to 'flag' it away.
infecto
Just based solely on comments alone you can see why these posts get flagged. It’s against the spirit of HN to house ideological battlegrounds regardless of whatever the truth or right side is.
Edit: I don’t have the exact theory of the inner workings but always assumed that’s why vouching existed. You are more effectively weighting the opinion of higher karma folks to help drive the site. You could always vouch for something but with each cycle it might down weight it as that’s a signal the story is too contentious. You probably lose some valuable discussions but also get to cut many more that are worthless.
airstrike
It's got nothing to do with being triggered and everything to do with this website trying to not also become completely flooded with political discussions
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
infecto
This is the way imo. I flagged this story, I believe in due process, I don’t agree with the administration but I also don’t want HN to become yet another tribal battleground and these posts only fuel those comments.
tomrod
Repeating my top level comment here:
[I w]ish there was a "vouch" option for when things that the US political right feels is an attack, despite it just being facts and worthy of discussion in an economic sector that is heavily connected with immigration, is flagged.
UncleMeat
Yeah its absolutely wild to me that a single flag can silence this sort of discussion, especially given that the tech ecosystem is so influential in ascendant fascism.
infecto
Pretty certain it’s not a single flag and at least 2 are required to tango.
infecto
While I sometimes dip in the political side of comments I am one of those folks that flag these type of posts.
I think they detract from HN and before you start accusing me of being something I am not, I fully support due process. It’s bit of a blurry line but it comes down to seeing how polarizing these topics are and the horse has already been beaten. I always have felt that HN is a mix of excellent moderation as well as a bit of the will of the audience. I don’t want this to be a place to talk politics, it’s already so pervasive.
kibwen
And now the current discussion is also flagged. The flagging system is entirely broken. HN makes a point not to have Reddit-style post downvoting, but instead it implemented something even worse in practice; at least downvoted posts on Reddit don't get automatically disappeared.
nicpottier
It is terrifying is what it is. That HN seems to be pretending that everything is going just fine and allowing these discussions to be buried is more than a little bit concerning. Have a fucking spine!
infecto
You are projecting the exact reasons folks flag stories like this. It becomes an ideological battleground and that is not in the spirit of HN.
AnimalMuppet
For the 94th time: It's not that we don't have a spine. It's not that we're pretending everything is fine. It's that we don't want to discuss it all day long on HN. We want HN to be something else than a political discussion site.
ModernMech
I only browse /active now for this reason.
tomrod
Wish there was a "vouch" option for when things that the US political right feels is an attack, despite it just being facts and worthy of discussion in an economic sector that is heavily connected with immigration, is flagged.
infecto
It could be what you say, “political right feeling attacked” or folks like me that that have seen this post before and other like it and think there is not much more value beating the horse some more.
tomrod
From the numrtosity of comments in threads like these, we may infer these to be relevant and interesting conversations regarding subjects capable of holding people's attention, whether direct or topical.
Tadpole9181
There is, but...
1. It requires flagging first. And that immediately kills posts ability to naturally grow. They're now invisible, so getting karma to get visibility is way harder. Even if they're unflagged, they're inherently disadvantaged and the original flagger still gets their way. 2. It's not accounted for in deduplication. So if a post is unflagged and it loses all momentum, nobody can repost it or it gets flagged for duplication! 3. Only some people can vouch, and they usually don't even know it exists. 4. And even if you can vouch, you need to go looking for flagged posts to find the post to vouch for.
Maybe some people should lose their flagging privileges when they're clearly abusing it? But I have a sneaking suspicion that won't happen.
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF
Most of what you said is correct but, in this case, the post cannot be vouched anymore. Only [dead] posts can be vouched and this was (presumably) vouched enough when it became [flagged][dead] to have those tags removed until it was flagged more to be [flagged] again. Because it's not also [dead], it cannot be vouched anymore. I've seen that pattern progress a couple of times and it lines up with the posts I am actually able to vouch. Rarely, there are comments that are [flagged] but not [dead], which similarly cannot be vouched.
kyrra
Since AP decided to not actually even say this in their article:
"Abrego Garcia was deemed by an immigration judge in 2019 to be a likely member of the MS-13 gang — a decision Abrego Garcia sharply contested and that the government credited to information gleaned from a confidential informant. But the court also agreed at the time that he should not be deported to El Salvador, finding that his fear of being persecuted was credible."
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/01/salvador-man-maryla...
Court filing: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578...
OGWhales
Some more up-to-date information which adds important context can be found here: https://clearinghouse-umich-production.s3.amazonaws.com/medi...
Relevant sections include:
> In support thereof, ICE offered a Gang Field Interview Sheet (“GFIS”) generated by PGPD. The GFIS explained that the only reason to believe Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was a gang member was that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie; and that a confidential informant advised that he was an active member of MS-13 with the Westerns clique.
> According to the Department of Justice and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, the “Westerns” clique operates in Brentwood, Long Island, in New York, a state that Plaintiff Abrego Garcia has never lived in.
> The attorney for Plaintiff Abrego Garcia subsequently made multiple attempts to obtain additional information from law enforcement concerning these allegations. PGPD indicated that it did not have any incident report related to the Home Deport episode at all, nor did the Department have any incident reports containing his name. The Hyattsville City Police Department (“HCPD”), on the other hand, confirmed it had an incident report for the Home Depot incident, but that only 3 people were named and Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was not one of them, nor did it have any other incident reports with his name in its database. His attorney also contacted the PGPD Inspector General requesting to speak to the detective who authored the GFIS sheet, but was informed that the detective had been suspended. A request to speak to other officers in the Gang Unit was declined.
> On August 9, 2019, the attorney for ICE indicated on the record that ICE had conferred with its law enforcement partners and that all the evidence and intelligence they had was what was contained in the GFIS.
rayiner
And the decision was upheld by the Board of Immigration Appeals: https://www.wmar2news.com/infocus/family-of-alleged-gang-mem...
null
sneak
ICE arrests US citizens all the time, some are held for years without trial.
The following article is from 2018. It’s even worse now. They are out of control.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/story/2018-04-27/ice-held-a...
> Davino Watson, a U.S. citizen, was wrongfully held in immigration detention centers for more than three years while he sought to prove his citizenship.
The cruelty and capriciousness is the point. Abolish ICE.
null
waltercool
[dead]
reversescenario
[flagged]
timcobb
How does this relate to this specific case and this specific individual?
marcusverus
This is intentionally deceptive messaging, as per usual. This "Maryland man" was an illegal immigrant who had been previously found by a judge to've been a member of MS-13.
rayiner
An immigration judge ordered him deported in 2019 because of suspected gang ties, after an appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals: https://www.wmar2news.com/infocus/family-of-alleged-gang-mem... (“Other court documents show an immigration judge ordered Abrego-Garcia to be removed from the U.S. back in April 2019 over his alleged gang ties.”).
ceejayoz
> Despite affirming Abrego-Garcia's link to MS-13, and authorizing his deportation, an immigration judge determined he should be removed somewhere other than El Salvador due to potential safety concerns.
ty6853
Who on earth would take someone suspected to be a gang member, other than his home country where he has the right to return? What makes more sense it to deport him (not that I agree with deportation here) to El Salvador and have the authorities escort him to some bumfuck area of the country where no one would know him.
ceejayoz
"But it would be hard!" is not a valid reason to ignore a judge's order.
Also the administration claims to be "powerless" to free him now. Does anybody believe this? Terrifying.
This isn't the only case, how many others are out there? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/its-a-tradit...