White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has denied that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, something he called a “hoax” despite the administration conceding the mistake in court documents.
“Nobody was mistakenly sent to El Salvador. He was ordered deported from this country in 2019. He’s an illegal alien. His home nation is El Salvador. That is where he belongs,” Miller told Fox News on Monday. “When you have a withholding order, to be clear, that is not pause your deportation. In other words, in the worst-case scenario, it means you get deported to another country.”
Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal worker and father of three, was mistakenly sent to El Salvador’s mega-prison CECOT. He was granted protected status by an immigration judge in 2019 that prohibited the federal government from sending him to El Salvador, and his attorneys say that he fled gang violence in El Salvador more than a decade ago.
A senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official previously stated in court filings that Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador as a result of an “administrative error.”
“Where is he from? El Salvador. Where is he a resident and citizen of? El Salvador. Is he here illegally? Yes. Does he have a deportation order? Yes,” Miller said.
Miller said “yes,” he is convinced that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, though his family denies that he is affiliated with the gang.
Miller said that the Supreme Court’s endorsement of a federal judge’s directive that US officials must “facilitate” bringing Abrego Garcia back to the United States has “been portrayed wrong for 72 hours in the media.”