A US senator has met a man who Trump administration officials have acknowledged was deported in error from Maryland to a mega-prison in El Salvador.
Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen posted photos of his meeting with Kilmar Ábrego García, whom the administration has refused to return to the US despite an order from a federal judge.
After the meeting, which appeared to take place in a hotel, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said the detainee would remain in the country’s custody.
The White House has accused Mr Ábrego García of being a member of the transnational Salvadoran gang MS-13, a designated foreign terrorist organisation, which his lawyer denies.
The meeting came amid an escalating showdown between the US president and the courts over the case.
Later on Thursday, a federal court ruled against the Trump administration in case which could mean government officials are deposed over the deportation.
In its judgement, the three-judge panel said: “The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.”
Mr Ábrego García’s lawyers are suing the US government for sending him to a mega-prison in El Salvador in March, in what the Trump administration has admitted was an error.
