The government claims he’s a member of the MS-13 gang, which his wife and attorney deny, and deported him to El Salvador despite a judge’s 2019 order barring him from being sent there.

President Trump claimed that Abrego Garcia's tattoos marked him as an MS-13 member, though critics said there was no relation.

Later in 2019, a U.S. immigration judge shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faced persecution there by local gangs that had terrorized his family. The Trump administration deported him there anyway, later describing the mistake as “an administrative error” but insisting he was in MS-13.