President Donald Trump’s administration has acknowledged mistakenly deporting a Maryland man with protected legal status to a notorious El Salvador prison last month, but is arguing against returning him to the United States because of his alleged gang ties and the U.S. government’s lack of power over the Central American nation.

Lawyers for Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, 29, maintain he is not affiliated with MS-13 or any other street gang and argue the U.S. government “has never produced an iota of evidence” that he does.

Abrego Garcia was arrested in Baltimore on March 12 after working a shift as a sheet metal apprentice in Baltimore and picking up his 5-year-old son, who has autism and other disabilities, from his grandmother’s house, his lawyers’ complaint stated. Abrego Garcia was then sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center which activists say is rife with abuses and where inmates are packed into cells and never allowed outside. Abrego Garcia’s wife later saw him in photos and video from the prison, identifying her husband.

— The Associated Press