A judge on Friday ordered the Department of Justice to provide her with daily updates about actions the Trump administration is taking to return to the United States a man it mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
Judge Paula Xinis’s demand came during a court hearing where she sparred with a DOJ attorney about what the Trump administration needed to do to comply with an order the Supreme Court issued one day prior.
The Supreme Court had directed the Trump administration on Thursday evening to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was mistakenly deported from Maryland to a prison in El Salvador on March 15. The Trump administration has said it has no ability to bring Abrego Garcia back because it has no control over a foreign country.
Xinis, an Obama appointee, demanded the DOJ provide a response by Friday morning about what the government was doing to comply with the Supreme Court’s order, but the DOJ vehemently objected to the judge’s deadline in a court filing, saying it was impossible to meet.
The judge had initially ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return, but the Supreme Court said that Xinis needed to clarify what the latter half of her order meant because it could infringe on the executive branch’s authority.
Xinis grilled Drew Ensign, the DOJ attorney present for the hearing, about where Abrego Garcia was and if the government had done anything to attempt to bring him back to the United States, according to courtroom reports from Lawfare. Ensign repeatedly said he did not have any answers to those questions.
Ensign’s lack of knowledge led Xinis to speculate that Trump administration officials were “playing a game” with Ensign to ensure he showed up uninformed to the hearing.
The Trump administration is facing numerous other lawsuits alleging it mistakenly deported migrants to the El Salvador prison, but Abrego Garcia’s is the furthest along in the court process and highlights the defiant approach the administration is taking to those challenging its deportation activity.
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT MARYLAND MAN’S DEPORTATION TO SALVADORAN MEGAPRISON
The heated exchanges in Maryland on Friday come after the Trump administration was sued by Abrego Garcia’s family last month for abruptly arresting him on March 12 and deporting him within 72 hours to a foreign prison without any due process.
He had no criminal record; however, in 2019, the Department of Homeland Security alleged that he was a member of the MS-13 gang based off a report the department received from an informant. One immigration judge said at the time that the informant was reliable, but another immigration judge found that gangs would target Abrego Garcia if he were deported to El Salvador and explicitly barred the government from deporting him to that country. The judge allowed him to continuing residing in Maryland even though he had no legal status. He has been living with his U.S. citizen wife and three children while working in construction, according to court filings.
