Judge rebukes Trump for doing ‘nothing’ to facilitate release of illegal alien deported to El Salvador
A federal judge has rebuked the Trump administration for doing “nothing” to facilitate release of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia after he was deported to El Salvador.
“To date nothing has been done,” Judge Paula Xinis said Tuesday.
Following an order from the District Court for the District of Maryland on April 4 directing the Trump administration to “facilitate and effectuate the return of [Abrego Garcia] to the United States,” Xinis told lawyers for the Justice Department that she was ordering expedited discovery to “determine whether you are fighting the court order, my court orders, whether you intend to abide by the court orders.”
The Supreme Court agreed last week that the Trump administration has an obligation to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from prison in El Salvador.
Xinis is not holding the administration in contempt of court but will require Trump administration officials to provide documentation and testify behind closed doors to determine if they are following the court’s order.
Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien from El Salvador, was living in Maryland until he was deported on March 15. Court documents link Abrego Garcia to MS-13 but the illegal alien denies he is a member of the violent gang. The Trump administration initially said he was removed due to an “administrative error,” but has since pushed back against that claim.
“A [Department of Justice] lawyer, who has since been relieved of duty, a saboteur, a Democrat, put into a filing incorrectly that this was a mistaken removal. It was not,” Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, said on Fox News on Monday.
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele met with President Donald Trump at the White House Monday and said he has no plans of releasing Abrego Garcia from the prison where he is being held.
“Can I smuggle him into the United States, or what do I do? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous,” Bukele told press.
Judge Xinis, a President Barack Obama appointee, said Tuesday she is not ordering the Trump administration to tell El Salvador to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S., but added that she is “stunned” that this administration has yet to ask for his release, Reuters reports.
During the White House press briefing Tuesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said “there is never going to be a world in which this is an individual who’s going to live a peaceful life in Maryland because he is a foreign terrorist and a MS-13 gang member.”
Trump has designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organization.
“I’m not sure what is so difficult about this for everyone in the media to understand,” Leavitt continued. “And it’s appalling, truly appalling, that there has been so much time covering this alleged human trafficker and this gang member, MS-13 gang member. It’s truly striking to me.”
Maryland Democrat Sen. Chris Van Hollen is traveling to El Salvador Wednesday to advocate for Abrego Garcia’s release.
“Mr. Abrego Garcia was illegally abducted by the Trump Admin and, by their own admission, wrongly deported to El Salvador. He shouldn’t have to spend another second away from his family,” Van Hollen wrote on X.
In a video at the airport Wednesday morning, the Maryland senator said the “goal of this mission is to let the Trump administration, to let the government of El Salvador know that we are going to keep fighting to bring Abrego Garcia home until he returns to his family.”
Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., bashed the senator for “spending taxpayer dollars” on trip to El Salvador during an interview on the “The Todd Starnes Show.”
“The senator’s spending money to send people to El Salvador and I don’t know what for—to go after an El Salvador citizen to bring them back to the United States,” Harris said.