Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Wrongfully Deported Md. Father, Transferred to Pa. Detention Facility

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland father who was wrongfully deported from the United States to El Salvador earlier this year, has been moved from a Virginia detention center to a facility in Pennsylvania.

According to court documents obtained by The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents notified Abrego Garcia’s lawyers on Friday, Sept. 26, that he was transferred to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, Pa., from the Farmville Detention Center in Virginia.

ICE told Abrego Garcia’s lawyers that the move would “allow Mr. Abrego-Garcia’s legal team greater access to him,” per CBS News and WHYY, but the attorneys have said this may not necessarily be true.

“Travel to Moshannon is far more difficult for the members of the defense team based in Nashville, and is not appreciably easier for the New York-based members of the defense team, compared to Farmville,” the filing states.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys also have raised concerns about the conditions at Moshannon, writing in the filing that there have been recent reports of “assaults, inadequate medical care and insufficient food.”

In a statement to PEOPLE, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), confirmed the transfer and claimed Abrego Garcia, 30, is a “MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser and child predator.” (Abrego Garcia has previously denied these allegations.)

“We are not going to allow this criminal Salvadoran gang member to be loose on U.S. streets to terrorize American citizens,” she said.

The Maryland father of three has been at the center of President Donald Trump‘s crackdown on illegal immigration since March, when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia returned to the U.S. in June after months in an El Salvador prison and was detained on human smuggling charges, including one count of conspiracy to transport aliens and one count of unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens. He has denied the allegations and pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys have continuously spoken out against the charges, calling them outrageous.

The Trump administration has also claimed that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang, which he has denied.

Trump, 79, mistakenly claimed in April that the deported father had “MS-13” tattooed on his knuckles in a major interview with ABC News. In actuality, he has four symbols: a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a cross and a skull. The photo that Trump was reviewing had the letters and numbers digitally added to explain the alleged gang reference.

The 30-year-old was first stopped by ICE agents on March 12, and his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, previously told CBS Mornings that she only realized that he had been deported when she recognized him in a photo of detainees in the prison.

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After being stopped by ICE, Abrego Garcia was detained in Texas. He was falsely told that “his immigration status had changed,” according to court documents filed in March.

Although he entered the U.S. without proper documentation as a teenager in 2011, multiple outlets have reported that Abrego Garcia was granted a protected status “based on concerns that he could be persecuted by gangs” if he were to return to El Salvador. Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland and has had a work permit since 2019, per Reuters.

During her appearance on CBS Mornings, Vasquez Sura said that she’s “very scared” for the safety of her husband.

“I’ve seen news of that prison,” she said, referring to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison. “I know they take criminals there. And my husband’s not a criminal.”