'Shocking': Hear from the Austin attorney helping represent a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Lucia Curiel went several years without hearing from her former client, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, but now the Austin-based immigration attorney said she is in almost daily contact with his wife.
“She’s in, understandably, just a state of desperation,” Curiel told KXAN.
The attorney reconnected with his family after Abrego Garcia was mistakenly sent to a prison in El Salvador, as a part of an effort from the Trump Administration to deport Venezuelan gang members. According to NBC News, immigration officials allege Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang but have conceded he should not have been sent to El Salvador, his country of birth, calling it an “administrative error.”
On Thursday night, the Supreme Court agreed with a lower court judge in ordering the government to “facilitate” his release and return to the United States. In its unsigned decision, the court wrote that the government “should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”
Curiel said Abrego Garcia’s wife tracked her down last month when her husband was detained by immigration officials. Just days later, he was removed from the country.
“I was in shock and disbelief,” Curiel said. “Frankly, in that moment, I thought — well, I would never have expected that they would have deported him because it was completely illegal. I thought at the very most they might have been trying to reopen his proceedings and sort of we would wait and see what would happen.”
More than five years ago, Curiel said she represented Abrego Garcia before the Baltimore immigration court, helping him apply for asylum and another form of relief called ‘withholding of removal.’ She said this followed interaction with law enforcement in 2019 that resulted in her client being labeled a gang member, but she — and other attorneys now working on his case — have said he was never convicted of a crime.
“He had never had any contact with the police prior to that interaction — never had any contact police after that interaction,” she noted.
Curiel said the immigration judge, at the time, granted his request for legal status of ‘withholding of removal,’ which prevents someone from being deported to their home country if there is a probability they could be persecuted there. According to the American Immigration Council, it does not offer permanent protection or a path to permanent residence.
Earlier this year, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt admitted ICE made a clerical error. However, Leavitt reiterated the allegations about his involvement with MS-13 and levelled new accusations against him, regarding human trafficking. She did not provide any evidence to those claims.
Now, Curiel works at the Austin-based Law Office of Mark Kinzler. She and several other attorneys from other firms across the country are working on Abrego Garcia’s case, which she said is a reflection of the significance of the case and “what it represents for…the respect for due process.”
“It’s important to understand that if it can happen to him, it can happen to others,” she told KXAN, just hours before the Supreme Court published its decision.
The case landed before the Supreme Court after the Justice Department filed an emergency request, contesting a judge’s order that Abrego Garcia be retrieved from the El Salvador prison. In its Thursday decision, the high court partly rejected that request but noted that judge may have exceeded their authority in ordering the government to also “effectuate” his release.
The Supreme Court asked the judge to “clarify” that directive.
