Young man, in mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.
John von Neumann
- Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia (Wikipedia)
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador who was illegally deported from the United States on March 15, 2025, in what the Trump administration called “an administrative error.” He was then imprisoned without trial in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a maximum security prison in El Salvador, despite never having been charged with or convicted of a crime in either country. His lawyers argue that his imprisonment is part of an agreement to jail U.S. deportees there in exchange for payment, and this was confirmed by United States senator Chris Van Hollen, who had spoken with Félix Ulloa, El Salvador’s vice president. The administration has defended the deportation in the press by accusing him of membership in the MS-13 gang, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. This accusation was based on a bail determination made in a 2019 immigration court proceedings that Abrego Garcia contested.