Man Deported in Error by US Is Secure in El Salvador Prison: Official

A State Department official said that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is ‘detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.’

Kilmar Abrego Garcia in a file photograph. Abrego Garcia Family/Handout via Reuters

The man the United States government has acknowledged erroneously deporting, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, is alive in a prison in El Salvador, a U.S. State Department official said in a new court filing.

“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,” Michael Kozak, the official, said in a sworn declaration to a federal judge in Washington. “He is alive and secure in that facility. He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.”