Kilmar Abrego Garcia tortured in El Salvador prison, U.S. court filings say

NOTE: This story contains disturbing details. Please read at your own discretion.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran man residing in Maryland who was wrongly deported to CECOT, a mega-jail in El Salvador whose name translates roughly as the Terrorism Confinement Centre, says he was subjected to severe physical and psychological torture while detained.

According to new court documents filed Wednesday, Abrego Garcia suffered sleep deprivation, beatings, inadequate nutrition and psychological torment during his stint at the notoriously brutal prison.

The father of three was deported to El Salvador in March, despite a 2019 protection order prohibiting it, over claims he was involved in gang activity, but was abruptly transferred to a Tennessee jail last month on separate human smuggling charges after U.S. President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele repeatedly ignored lawmakers’ demands to bring him back to the U.S.

On June 25, a U.S. federal judge ruled that Abrego Garcia had a right to be released while he awaits trial on the smuggling charges. Nonetheless, he will remain in jail while lawyers spar over whether federal prosecutors can stop U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from deporting him to El Salvador again.

Abrego Garcia was first transported to his country of birth on March 15 on one of several Trump-ordered flights from the U.S. carrying alleged criminals to CECOT. He claims to have endured severe abuse from the moment he arrived.

When disembarking the aircraft, he was grabbed by guards and pushed down the stairs head-first, the court documents say. He also claims the ordeal was filmed.

Shortly after, Abrego Garcia was “pushed toward a bus, forcibly seated, and fitted with a second set of chains and handcuffs and was repeatedly hit by officers when he attempted to raise his head,” the court filing reads.

After arriving at CECOT, he and other inmates were greeted by a prison guard who allegedly said, “Welcome to CECOT. Whoever enters here doesn’t leave.”

Abrego Garcia said he was then made to strip and dress in prison attire while being kicked in the legs with boots and struck on his arms and head to make him change his clothes faster.

His head was then shaved, and he was beaten with wooden batons while being frog-marched to his cell, he said. The next day, he said that visible bruises, marks and lumps had appeared on his skin.

According to the legal filing, Abrego Garcia was assigned to a cell housing 20 inmates, all of whom were then forced to kneel for nine hours straight between approximately 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., and struck by guards if they fell from exhaustion. During his time, Abrego Garcia was denied bathroom access and soiled himself, he claimed.

The young father claimed that he and his cellmates were held in overcrowded conditions with no windows, bright lights that stayed on 24 hours a day, metal bunks with no mattresses, and minimal access to sanitation.

After a week, he said he was put in a cell with seven other El Salvadorans who prison officials had determined had no gang affiliations, and 12 other suspected gang members were separated from the group.

The gang claims

The Trump administration initially deported Abrego Garcia over a 2019 claim that he is affiliated with a New York chapter of the MS-13 gang, despite never having lived there and never being charged with a crime.

It landed him in ICE detention the same year. He was eventually released after a judge denied him asylum but granted him legal status in the U.S. and protection from being deported back to El Salvador, from which he and his brother fled to the U.S. in 2011, because of a “well-founded fear” of gang persecution.

ICE never appealed his release, and he continued to check in with authorities yearly while the Department of Homeland Security issued him a work permit. He joined a union and remained a full-time employee in the construction industry until his protection order was breached in March.

Wednesday’s court filing said Salvadoran officials recognized that Abrego Garcia was not gang-affiliated based on his tattoos, telling him “your tattoos are fine” but threatening to throw him in a cell with known gang members, who they assured would “tear him apart.”

Abrego Garcia said he witnessed inmates whom he understood to be gang members violently harm each other with no intervention.

“Screams from nearby cells would similarly ring out throughout the night without any response from prison guards or personnel,” the filing states.

During his first two weeks at CECOT, Abrego Garcia said he lost 31 pounds, dropping from approximately 215 pounds to 184 pounds. On April 9, he and four others were photographed with mattresses and better food in what he says was a staged setup to document “improved conditions.”

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On or about April 10, Abrego Garcia said he was transferred alone to the Centro Industrial prison facility in Santa Ana, El Salvador, where he was denied visitation, communication with his family and access to counsel until Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen visited him on April 17.

A week before Van Hollen’s visit, senior U.S. officials ignored a Supreme Court ruling ordering the U.S. government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, including U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, who stated on April 16, “he is not coming back to our country…. He’s in El Salvador, and that’s where the president plans on keeping him. ”

Trump claimed in a public interview that he had not been asked by his lawyers to contact Bukele to organize Abrego Garcia’s return.

Abrego Garcia returns to the U.S.

After months of being denied his right to return to the U.S., on June 6, Abrego Garcia was flown home and charged with the smuggling of illegal aliens — including children and MS-13 gang members — across state lines from 2016 to 2025.

He pleaded not guilty at a court hearing on June 13.

The charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding in Tennessee during which he was driving a vehicle with nine passengers who didn’t have any luggage.

Body camera footage shows a calm exchange between officers and Abrego Garcia. The officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. One of the officers says, “He’s hauling these people for money.” Another says Abrego Garcia had US$1,400 in an envelope.

He was let go with a warning.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have characterized the case as an attempt by Trump’s administration to justify his mistaken deportation in March and its inability to substantiate claims that he was involved in gang activity.

— With files from The Associated Press