Abrego Garcia says beaten, tortured in El Salvador prison, Trump admin calls account 'sob story'

Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was recently deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration, is saying upon his return to the U.S. that he was beaten and psychologically tortured while imprisoned in the Latin American country.

Garcia, who came to the U.S. illegally in 2012, was deported back to El Salvador, despite a 2019 court order provision that he could not be deported there because of the threat of violence against him, according to Politico.

However, the Trump administration has maintained he was nevertheless a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which Abrego Garcia has denied.

Abrego Garcia's account of his prison stay was part of a court filing from his attorneys Wednesday in their effort to convince Maryland U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis to block their client's deportation again, while he awaits trial on human smuggling charges in Tennessee, according to ABC News. 

The Department of Homeland Security has disputed his account of confinement.

“Once again the media is falling all over themselves to defend Kilmar Abrego Garcia," the agency said in an X post Wednesday. "This illegal alien is an MS-13 gang member, alleged human trafficker, and a domestic abuser. The media’s sympathetic narrative about this criminal illegal gang member has completely fallen apart, yet they continue to peddle his sob story," the post reads.  “We hear far too much about gang members and criminals’ false sob stories and not enough about their victims.”

The court documents state Garcia was “kicked in the legs with boots and struck on his head and arms."

He and fellow cellmates were also forced to kneel all through the night and anyone who fell from exhaustion was struck by the guards, the documents allege.