A Maryland judge is demanding that President Donald Trump’s administration return a man who it has acknowledged was mistakenly deported to an El Salvador mega-prison.

Last month, the Trump administration sent Kilmar Ábrego García to a facility in the Central American country along with more than 200 Venezuelans and Salvadorans, many of whom officials have claimed are gang members.

The Supreme Court last week partially backed Judge Paula Xinis’s order requiring officials to “facilitate” the Salvadoran national’s release, after the government conceded his deportation was an “administrative error”.

Trump officials have continued to push back against the order, and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele said this week he would not let Mr Ábrego García return to the US.

On Tuesday, Judge Xinis gave the government two weeks to provide more information on what it has done to free Mr Ábrego García.

Mr Ábrego García came to the US from El Salvador illegally around 2011.

In 2019, Mr Ábrego García was arrested with three other men in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities.

An immigration judge later that year granted him legal protection from deportation on the grounds that he might be at risk of persecution from local gangs in his home country.

The 29-year-old had been living with his wife and child under this protected legal status in Maryland until he was deported.

Mr Ábrego García’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a US citizen, has said the Trump and Bukele administrations “continue to play political games with his life”.

The Trump administration has said that Mr Ábrego García’s deportation to El Salvador was in error, but they have also claimed he has ties to the MS-13 gang, a group it designates as a foreign terrorist organisation.

Trump officials have said a confidential informant made them aware of the ties, which Mr Ábrego García’s family members and lawyers dispute.

The federal judge presiding over his case has said Mr Ábrego García has no criminal record in the US or El Salvador, and has called the gang ties “a singular unsubstantiated allegation”.

Mr Ábrego García has not been charged with gang activities.

Visiting Trump on Monday, El Salvador’s Bukele said he would not return Mr Ábrego García because “we’re not very fond of releasing terrorists to our country”. No evidence has been provided linking Mr Ábrego García to terrorism.

“The question is preposterous,” Bukele said, an ally of Trump since he took over the White House. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said at the meeting it was “up to El Salvador if they want to return him”.

She said the Supreme Court ruled “that if El Salvador wants to return him… we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane”.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Democrats and the media had made it seem like “we deported a candidate for father of the year”, claiming once again he was an MS-13 gang member.

Mr Ábrego García is being held in El Salvador’s notorious Cecot (Terrorism Confinement Centre).

Soon after his deportation, his relatives sued the Trump administration to bring him back to the US.

Judge Xinis, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, then ordered the government to “facilitate and effectuate” his return by 7 April.

After the Trump administration appealed against the ruling to the Supreme Court, the justices ruled unanimously that the Trump administration must try to “facilitate” his return, while asking the district court to clarify its “effectuate” directive.

The justices did not give the administration a deadline for when Mr Ábrego García should be freed.

On Tuesday, Judge Xinis again directed the Trump administration to provide more information on what it has done to release Mr Ábrego García.

Judge Xinis said she’d decide in two weeks whether the government was acting in good faith, or in contempt of court.

A US official said over the weekend that Mr Ábrego García was “alive and secure” in the mega-prison.

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen – alongside other lawmakers – said that if Mr Ábrego García was not returned by the middle of the week, he would “travel to El Salvador this week” to check on his condition and try to secure his release.