DOJ says whereabouts of Maryland immigrant wrongly deported to El Salvador are unknown

The Department of Justice on Friday said the whereabouts of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland-based Salvadoran immigrant wrongly deported to an El Salvador megaprison with hundreds of criminals and gang members last month, are unknown.

The admission comes after the Supreme Court upheld a lower federal court's decision Thursday to facilitate Garcia's return from the Central American prison. It also comes after U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the DOJ to submit more information about Garcia following the SCOTUS ruling.

Xinis on Thursday evening ordered the DOJ to file the following information no later than 9:30 a.m. on Friday: "(1) the current physical location and custodial status of Abrego Garcia; (2) what steps, if any, Defendants have taken to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s immediate return to the United States; and (3) what additional steps Defendants will take, and when, to facilitate his return."

DOJ officials and AbregoGarcia's attorneys had a hearing in federal court on Friday afternoon, at which point Judge Xinis repeatedly asked DOJ attorney Drew Ensign about Garcia's whereabouts.

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"Where is he and under whose authority?" Xinis said in court Friday.

 "I do not have that information," Ensign responded, adding that Abrego Garcia is currently in the custody of Salvadoran officials and that officials did not provide confirmation of his whereabouts prior to the Friday hearing.

"I’m not asking for state secrets. I’m asking where one man is," Xinis said. "The government was prohibited from sending him to El Salvador, and now I’m asking a very simple question: Where is he?"

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"I do not have that information," Ensign said.

"I am asking a very simple question. Where is he?" Xinis repeated

"I do not have any information,"  Ensign said again. "I do not have plaintiffs’ assertion that he is in El Salvador under the control of that government. The government has not submitted any evidence that would be contrary to that."

Xinis further asked if the government had done anything to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return to the United States, to which Ensign responded it was "unclear" if they had.

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"That means they haven’t done anything," Xinis said. "Despite this court’s directive, your clients have done nothing to facilitate the return of Mr. Garcia. To say to me that you don’t have personal knowledge means that you don’t have effective contact with your clients."

 Ensign said the government is "evaluating what can be shared and is not yet prepared to resolve that question."

 The two went back and forth repeatedly about the details of Abrego Garcia's case.

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Xinis said it is "quite clear the government is playing a game with their own lawyers."

The DOJ also submitted a written response in the federal case Friday stating that "[d]efendants are unable to provide the information requested by the Court on the impracticable deadline set by the Court hours after the Supreme Court issued its order."

"The Supreme Court’s order directs the Court to ‘clarify its directive…’ The Court has not yet clarified what it means to ‘facilitate’ or ‘effectuate’ the return as it relates to this case, as Plaintiff is in the custody of a foreign sovereign," DOJ lawyers wrote. "Defendants request— and require—the opportunity to brief that issue prior to being subject to any compliance deadlines. Needless to say, Defendants were under no obligation to take action under the court’s order while it was administratively stayed by the Chief Justice of the United States."

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DOJ attorneys added that the federal court did not give a sufficient amount of time to "review the Supreme Court’s Order following the dissolution of the administrative stay in this case."

They further stated in the court filing that the DOJ defendants are reviewing SCOTUS order and "actively evaluating next steps."

"It is unreasonable and impracticable for Defendants to reveal potential steps before those steps are reviewed, agreed upon, and vetted. Foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines, in part because it involves sensitive country-specific considerations wholly inappropriate for judicial review," Ensign and other DOJ attorneys wrote.

Federal court filings showed Abrego Garcia had fled El Salvador to escape gang violence. Starting around 2006, gang members "stalked, hit, and threatened to kidnap and kill him in order to coerce his parents to succumb to their increasing demands for extortion."

He entered the United States illegally in 2011 and traveled to Maryland, where his older brother, a U.S. citizen, lived.

Around 2016, Abrego Garcia became romantically involved with a female U.S. citizen — Jennifer Vasquez Sura — and her two children, also U.S. citizens. They moved in together and the woman became pregnant with his child. Abrego Garcia worked in the construction industry to support his family, court filings say.

On March 28, 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot in Hyattsville, Maryland, to solicit employment and was recruited by three other men. Prince George County Police Department soon arrived at the scene and detained all four men.

At the police station, the four young men were placed into different rooms and questioned. Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was asked if he was a gang member; when he told police he was not, they said that they did not believe him and repeatedly demanded that he provide information about other gang members," court documents state. "The police told Plaintiff Abrego Garcia that he would be released if he cooperated, but he repeatedly explained that he did not have any information to give because he did not know anything."

A judge later granted his release, and Abrego Garcia married his now-wife in 2019. He did, however, miss the birth of his child while in federal custody, the federal complaint says. 

Abrego Garcia was arrested in Baltimore on March 12 after he worked a shift as a sheet metal apprentice in Baltimore and picked up his now-5-year-old son, who has autism and other disabilities, from his grandmother’s house, the complaint says.