By BEN FINLEY

President Donald Trump ‘s administration has acknowledged mistakenly deporting a Maryland man with protected legal status to a notorious El Salvador prison but is arguing against returning him to federal custody in the United States because of alleged gang ties.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials admitted in a court filing on Monday night to an “administrative error” in deporting the 29-year-old man, generating immediate uproar from immigration advocates.

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was arrested on March 12 after completing a shift as a sheet metal worker apprentice at a construction site in Baltimore, according to a complaint filed in federal court by his lawyers.

Abrego Garcia was then sent to a notorious prison in his home country, the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, which activists say is rife with abuses and where inmates are packed into cells and never allowed outside.

He was placed at CECOT despite an immigration judge’s ruling in 2019 that he not be deported to El Salvador because he had established it was “more likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs,” according to his lawyer’s complaint.

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Abrego Garcia “left El Salvador when he was around sixteen years old, fleeing gang violence,” according to the complaint. “Beginning around 2006, gang members had stalked, hit, and threatened to kidnap and kill him in order to coerce his parents to succumb to their increasing demands for extortion.”

“Although he has been accused of general ‘gang affiliation,’ the U.S. government has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation,” the complaint stated, adding that Abrego Garcia is neither a member of nor affiliated with MS-13 or any other criminal or street gang.

Abrego Garcia’s wife later saw him in photos and video of him at the prison, identifying her husband through his distinctive tattoos and two scars on his head, the complaint stated.

The Trump administration said in its court filing that ICE “was aware of his protection from removal to El Salvador,” but still deported Abrego Garcia “because of an administrative error.”

The administration argued against his return to the U.S., citing alleged gang ties and claiming that he is a danger to the community. The administration stated that his gang ties were confirmed at a 2019 bond proceeding and upheld by the Board of Immigration Appeals.

“This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13,” Robert Cerna, ICE’s acting field office director of enforcement and removal operations, wrote in a statement to the court.

By PAUL WISEMAN, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Employers posted 7.6 million job openings in February, a sign that that the job market is slowing but remains healthy. Layoffs of federal workers hit the highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic slammed the economy in 2020, as Elon Musk’s job cuts start to show up in national jobs data.

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The number of vacancies fell slightly from a revised 7.8 million in January and from a 8.4 million a year earlier, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. Openings have come down more or less steadily since peaking at 12.1 million in March 2022 when the economy was still roaring back from COVID-19 lockdowns.

Layoffs rose to 1.8 million in February from 1.7 million in January. Federal agencies laid off 18,000 workers, most since October 2020. Retailers, cautious about the outlook for 2025, laid off 238,000 in February, highest figure since April 2020 in the depths of the COVID-19 recession.

The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, showed that the overall number of people quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence they can find better pay or working conditions elsewhere — fell slightly in February.

The American job market has proven surprisingly durable. But it has clearly lost momentum from the frantic hiring days of 2021-2023. And the outlook for hiring is cloudy as President Donald Trump pursues trade wars, purges the federal workforce and promises to deport millions of immigrants working in the United States illegally.

That has begun to have an impact on the optimism that Americans hold about the job market and the economy. Late last month the University of Michigan released its updated consumer sentiment survey for March, which showed a sharp drop in Americans’ outlook for the economy. The survey also found growing anxiety over inflation and jobs.

Economists are worried that Trump’s trade wars – he is expected to announce sweeping tariffs on American trading partners Wednesday – will push up prices and stunt economic growth.

“The jobs market remains the economy’s bulwark, and while it’s eroding slowly, it’s not showing cracks that foreshadow recession,” Robert Frick, economist with Navy Federal Credit Union, said in a commentary on the job openings report. “How it holds up to assaults from tariffs’ effects on consumers and businesses is the crucial question, and one that won’t be answered until later this year.”

On Friday, the Labor Department issues the jobs report for March. According to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet, it is expected to show that employers added 125,000 jobs last month, down from 151,000 in February and an average 168,000 a month in 2024. The unemployment rate is forecast to tick up to a still-low 4.2%.

By DEVNA BOSE and LINDSEY WHITEHURST

A coalition of state attorneys general sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over its decision to cut $11 billion in federal funds that go toward COVID-19 initiatives and various public health projects across the country.

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Attorneys general from 23 states filed the suit in federal court in Rhode Island. They include New York Attorney General Letitia James, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as well as attorneys general in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as the District of Columbia.

The lawsuit argues the cuts are illegal, and that the federal government did not provide “rational basis” or facts to support the cuts. The attorneys general say it will result in “serious harm to public health” and put states “at greater risk for future pandemics and the spread of otherwise preventable disease and cutting off vital public health services.”

The lawsuit asks the court to immediately stop the Trump administration from rescinding the money, which was allocated by Congress during the pandemic and mostly used for COVID-related efforts such as testing and vaccination. The money also went to addiction and mental health programs.

“Slashing this funding now will reverse our progress on the opioid crisis, throw our mental health systems into chaos, and leave hospitals struggling to care for patients,” James said Tuesday in a news release.

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department, which began serving employees dismissal notices on Tuesday in what’s expected to total 10,000 layoffs, said it does not comment on ongoing litigation.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon pointed to the agency’s statement from last week, when the decision to claw back the money was announced. The HHS said then that it “will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.”

Local and state public health departments are still assessing the impact of the loss of funds, though the lawsuit points to the claw back putting hundreds of jobs at risk and weakening efforts to stem infectious diseases like flu and measles.

Health officials in North Carolina, which joined the lawsuit, estimate the state could lose $230 million, harming dozens of local health departments, hospital systems and universities, and rural health centers. At least 80 government jobs and dozens of contractors would be affected, according to state health officials.

“There are legal ways to improve how tax dollars are used, but this wasn’t one of them,” North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson said. “Immediately halting critical health care programs across the state without legal authority isn’t just wrong — it puts lives at risk.”

Already, more than two dozen COVID-related research grants funded by the National Institutes of Health have been cancelled.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from March shows that COVID-19 killed 411 people each week on average, even though the federal public health emergency has ended.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday she has directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, the man accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside a New York City hotel on Dec. 4.

Mangione, 26, faces separate federal and state murder charges for the killing, which rattled the business community while also galvanizing health insurance critics. The federal charges include murder through use of a firearm, which carries the possibility of the death penalty. The state charges carry a maximum punishment of life in prison.

Prosecutors have said the two cases will proceed on parallel tracks, with the state charges expected to go to trial first. It wasn’t immediately clear if Bondi’s death penalty announcement will change the order of how the cases are tried.

“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” Bondi said in a statement. “After careful consideration, I have directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in this case as we carry out President Trump’s agenda to stop violent crime and Make America Safe Again.”

A message seeking comment was left for a spokesperson for Mangione’s lawyers.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to a state indictment and has not entered a plea to the federal charges.

President Donald Trump, who oversaw an unprecedented run of executions at the end of his first term, signed an executive order on his first day back in office on Jan. 20 that compels the Justice Department to seek the death penalty in federal cases where applicable.

His predecessor, Joe Biden, had issued a moratorium on federal executions.

Thompson, 50, was ambushed and shot on a sidewalk as he walked to an investor conference at a hotel in midtown Manhattan.

Mangione was arrested Dec. 9 while eating breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Police said he was carrying a gun that matched the one used in the shooting and a fake ID. He also was carrying a notebook expressing hostility toward the health insurance industry and especially wealthy executives, authorities said.

UnitedHealthcare is the largest health insurer in the U.S., though the company said Mangione was never a client.

Among the entries in the notebook, prosecutors said, was one from August 2024 that said “the target is insurance” because “it checks every box” and one from October that describes an intent to “wack” an insurance company CEO.