A US judge scolded a Trump administration lawyer for not explaining how the government is helping a Maryland man, wrongly deported to a prison in El Salvador.
This came after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said that the man wouldn’t be sent back.
US District Judge Paula Xinis said she would order depositions of government officials while questioning a Justice Department lawyer on Tuesday about Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case.
Garcia was deported on March 15, despite a 2019 court order that prevented his return to El Salvador.
“There will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding. To date, what the record shows is that nothing has been done. Nothing,” Xinis said in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Judge Xinis said there was no evidence that steps had been taken to bring Abrego Garcia back. She showed frustration and mentioned she might hold the government in contempt of court, but decided to delay that decision.
She ordered that Garcia’s lawyers be allowed to quickly gather evidence from the government.
On April 10, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration, which acknowledged that Abrego Garcia was deported due to an administrative error, must take steps to “facilitate” his release from Salvadoran custody and return him to the US.
Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign told the judge that “significant steps” had been taken by the government, including raising the issue in the Oval Office with President Bukele on Monday.
Xinis responded sharply, saying the Oval Office discussion was not evidence of compliance with her order.
The hearing took place a day after Bukele met President Donald Trump at the White House, where he said he didn’t “have the power to return him to the United States.”
Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia and why is his deportation controversial?
US authorities claim that Abrego Garcia is a member of the notorious MS-13 criminal gang. However, Garcia and his lawyers deny this allegation, saying he fled El Salvador to escape extortion by a different gang.
Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 criminal gang and say his fate is up to El Salvador. Abrego Garcia and his lawyers deny he is a gang member, and say he fled his native country to avoid extortion by another gang.
“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him, that’s not up to us,” Bondi said. “If they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.”
Abrego Garcia arrived in the US in 2011 to live with family and, according to his lawyers, has no criminal record in either the US or El Salvador. He was lawfully residing in Maryland before being deported last month, along with 250 other alleged gang members, to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center.
In 2019, an immigration judge ruled that Abrego Garcia could not be deported to his native El Salvador due to the threat of gang-based extortion.
With Bloomberg inputs
