Abrego Garcia Moved to El Salvador Detention Facility, Given Own Room: State Department

The State Department said the illegal immigrant was given a bed and furniture of his own in a lower security detention facility in El Salvador.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, in an undated file photograph. Abrego Garcia Family/Handout via Reuters

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant who was deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration, has been transferred from the country’s maximum-security prison to a detention facility, where he now has his own room, according to an April 20 court filing by the U.S. State Department.

Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native, illegally entered the United States in 2011 and was living in Maryland. He was arrested and deported to El Salvador in March for allegedly being a member of the MS-13 gang, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, despite an immigration judge having issued a withholding of removal—which legally barred his deportation to his home country—in 2019 because of concerns for his safety.

The department stated that Abrego Garcia was transferred from El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) to a facility in Santa Ana eight days before he met with U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on April 17 during the senator’s visit to the country.

“Abrego Garcia told Sen. Van Hollen that he had been placed in the administrative building of Centro Industrial, in a room of his own with a bed and furniture, and that he was not in a cell,” Michael Kozak, a senior official at the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, said in the filing.

Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on April 17 to visit Abrego Garcia after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said the man would not be returned to the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the United States after it acknowledged that he was deported following an administrative error.

The administration has stated that it lacked the authority to return Abrego Garcia from El Salvador, as he was already in the custody of a foreign nation.

Speaking to reporters on April 16, Van Hollen said the Salvadoran government initially denied him a visit or phone call with Abrego Garcia after meeting with Salvadoran Vice President Félix Ulloa. That visit occurred the following day when Salvadoran officials transported Abrego Garcia to the hotel where Van Hollen was staying.

The senator has accused the Trump administration of defying court orders.

“When you defy court orders and deny one man his Constitutional rights, you threaten them for ALL,” Van Hollen said on social media, saying there was no evidence linking Abrego Garcia to the MS-13 gang.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

President Donald Trump has criticized Democrats who he said were falsely portraying Abrego Garcia as an innocent person, saying that two courts have found him to be a member of “the violent, killer gang MS-13.”

“Those lying to the American People on behalf of violent criminals have to be held responsible by the Agencies and the Courts,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on April 20.

U.S. President Donald Trump greets Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele at the White House on April 14, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

On April 18, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released documents detailing Abrego Garcia’s past encounters with law enforcement.

According to the documents, Abrego Garcia was pulled over in Tennessee for speeding while carrying eight other individuals in a vehicle belonging to his employer in December 2022.

No luggage was found in the vehicle. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the group’s three-day travel from Texas to Maryland “reek of human trafficking.”

“We hear far too much about the gang members and criminals’ false sob stories and not enough about their victims,” McLaughlin said in a statement.

Abrego Garcia was not charged in the incident.

In 2019, he was identified by the Prince George’s County Police Department’s gang unit as a member of the MS-13 gang. He was later granted withholding of removal by an immigration judge, according to the DHS.

Jacob Burg contributed to this report.