Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national at the center of a heated legal battle, is accusing U.S. and Salvadoran authorities of severe human rights violations following his mistaken deportation by the Trump administration earlier this year.
In a newly filed court document in Maryland, Abrego Garcia alleges he was subjected to “psychological torture,” “severe beatings,” sleep deprivation, and starvation during a more than three-week imprisonment at El Salvador’s notorious supermax facility, the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
He says he lost 31lbs. and was denied contact with lawyers and family.
Abrego Garcia was deported in March despite a 2019 federal order prohibiting his removal to El Salvador.
According to his lawyers, U.S. immigration agents misled him into believing he’d see a judge before being deported. The government later called the deportation an “administrative error.”
Abrego Garcia describes being welcomed to CECOT with the warning, “Whoever enters here doesn’t leave.”
He was stripped, beaten with batons, and forced to kneel for hours without rest. He and hundreds of other deportees were held in windowless, overcrowded cells with lights on 24/7.
After weeks of mistreatment, Abrego Garcia claims he was photographed in staged scenes showing better conditions.
In early June, following pressure from the courts, Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S.—only to be immediately arrested in Tennessee and charged with human smuggling. He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers fear that upon release, he could again be deported—this time to a “third country.”
The Trump administration insists Abrego Garcia is an MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, and domestic abuser—accusations he and his attorneys strongly deny.
His wife, who had once filed a protection order, later recanted, stating that the matter had been resolved privately.
A Maryland judge is expected to consider whether to allow the amended lawsuit to proceed.
A hearing is set for early next week.
