Kilmarábrego García

A Maryland man was wrongly deported to El Salvador and detained in one of the country’s most notorious prisons, subjected to “severe assault” and “torture,” new court documents say.

Attorneys for Kilmarábrego García, 29, claimed that within one day he arrived at the Cecot Parrive, the guards attacked the guard, which left him injured.

The Trump administration has previously claimed that Mr. Ábrego García is a member of the El Salvador gang MS-13, a member his lawyer and family strongly denied.

Officials initially said Mr. Ábrego García would never be able to return to the United States, but in June he was extradited to Tennessee to face human trafficking charges – a crime he pleaded not guilty.

Mr Ábrego García and 20 other detainees were repeatedly beaten when they arrived at the terrorist terrorist imprisonment center or CECOT in El Salvador, according to new court documents filed Wednesday.

According to the document, once there, Mr. Ábrego García and 20 other deported prisoners were “confined to metal beds without mattresses, no windows, no windows, bright lights 24 hours a day, 24 hours a day, with minimal sanitary access”.

Mr. Ábrego García also claimed that he and other prisoners were “forced to kneel” from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., “the guards hit anyone who fell from exhaustion.

At one point, the guards allegedly threatened to limit him to the members of the gang that “ripped him apart” him.

The complaint said his abuse caused him to lose 30 pounds (14 kg) in the first two weeks of his imprisonment in El Salvador.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has previously said that his country’s prisons are “clean, orderly, without abuse, unhygienic conditions, assault or murder”.

exist Visit the White House earlier this yearhe expressed support for the Trump administration’s deportation agenda.

The Trump administration has asked a federal judge in Maryland to monitor the case to dismiss the lawsuit, and Mr. Ábrego GoGarcía returned to the United States after the lawsuit was replaced by the incident. The lawsuit was filed after Mr. Ábrego García’s deportation.

Mr. Ábrego García first entered the United States illegally in 2011 and was deported by an immigration judge in 2019 because it was determined that he could face gangster danger if he returned to his native country, El Salvador.

But in March 2025, Maryland residents were deported, initially held in El Salvador’s Cecot Mega Pronon, which Trump administration officials later admitted was a mistake. The judge ordered the administration to “promote” his return, but White House officials initially refused to bring him back.

After returning to the charges in June, Attorney General Pam Bondi said: “This is what American justice looks like.”

He denied any misconduct, and his lawyer called the trafficking allegations “absurd”.

In late June, a federal judge in Tennessee ruled that Mr. Ábrego García was eligible for release, but due to concerns from his own legal team, he could be deported again if he leaves the facility.