ARTICLE AD BOX
More than a month after the Supreme Court agreed that Donald Trump’s administration must be ordered to “facilitate” the release of a wrongfully deported Salvadoran immigrant, the government is refusing to do so — and arguing with a federal judge that they don’t have to.
The weeks-long court battle is leaving a judge’s head “spinning,” Maryland District Judge Paula Xinis told attorneys on Friday.
Last month, Supreme Court justices unanimously agreed that the government’s removal of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was “illegal.”
Now, government attorneys are sparring with Judge Xinis to try to conceal what, if anything, the administration is doing to return him, and why that information needs to be kept secret.
Meanwhile, administration officials are “shouting from the rooftops” in public about ensuring that Abrego Garcia never returns to the United States, according to his attorneys.
“He will never walk freely in the U.S.,” Department of Justice lawyer Jonathan Guynn told District Judge Paula Xinis in a Maryland courtroom on Friday.
“That sounds to me like an admission you will not take steps” to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return,” Xinis replied.
“That’s about as clear as it can get,” said Gyunn.
Despite government attorneys and the White House admitting that Abrego Garcia was deported from Maryland “due to an administrative error,” the Justice Department is now clashing with its own determination — and multiple court rulings from federal judges in the Supreme Court — about the legality of his removal.
“Abrego Garcia was removed without lawful authority — you conceded it,” Xinis told Justice Department lawyers on Friday.
“Not to split hairs with your honor, but he was removed lawfully,” Guynn said. “He shouldn’t be in the United States.”
“He was removed in error,” Xinis replied.
Guynn later conceded that he was reported in “error” but said it did not rise to government “misconduct.”
Government attorneys have produced more than 1,400 documents in the case, but Abrego Garcia’s legal team has only received 164, most of which are photocopies of their own filings.
“My head is spinning,” Xinis told the court at one point.
Lawyers for Abrego Garcia’s family asked the judge to keep the government on “as tight a leash as possible” to ensure the administration is responding to court-ordered questions.
Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador as a teenager in 2011 and was working as a sheet-metal apprentice in Maryland, where he has been living with his wife and 5-year-old child, both U.S. citizens. The couple is also raising two other children from a previous relationship.
After a traffic stop in March, he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and then deported to El Salvador’s brutal Terrorism Confinement Center. He was later moved to another prison designed to imprison non-gang members.
Trump’s allies and administration officials have repeatedly sought to justify his detention over allegations of criminal activity and gang membership, which were raised only after he was summarily deported. Democrats and legal analysts argue the administration could return Abrego Garcia and then use that alleged evidence against him in normal immigration court removal hearings, but the government is refusing to do so.
Instead, Justice Department lawyers and Trump administration officials have raised a “state secrets” privilege to try to avoid answering questions about the government’s relationship with El Salvador and conversations about the arrangements among officials.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers argued that the government hasn’t shown even “the slightest effort” to fulfill court orders to retrieve him, and even cited Trump’s interview last month with ABC News in which he said he could bring Abrego Garcia back but won’t.
On Friday, Xinis described the government’s reasoning for withholding that information as “take my word for it.”
“There’s simply no details,” she said. “This is basically ‘take my word for it.’”
English (US) ·