A federal judge is for the second time ordering the Trump administration to return a Maryland man who was mistakenly sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador, blasting the U.S. government in a ruling Sunday that noted a now-suspended Justice Department lawyer admitted he didn’t know why the man was being held.
The order from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis reaffirms a ruling she gave days earlier, shooting down arguments that the government can’t facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia because he is no longer in U.S. custody.
“As defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador — let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere,” Xinis wrote. “Having confessed grievous error, the defendants now argue that this Court lacks the power to hear this case, and they lack the power to order Abrego Garcia’s return.”
The Justice Department has asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to pause Xinis’ ruling.
Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national, was arrested in Maryland and deported last month despite an immigration judge’s 2019 ruling that shielded him from deportation to El Salvador, where he faced likely persecution by local gangs.
Abrego Garcia had a permit from DHS to legally work in the U.S. and that he was a sheet metal apprentice pursuing a journeyman license, his attorney said. His wife is a U.S. citizen.
The White House has described Abrego Garcia’s deportation as an “administrative error” but has also cast him an MS-13 gang member. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia said there is no evidence he was in MS-13.
In her order Sunday, Xinis referenced earlier comments from now-suspended Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni in which Reuveni said: “We concede he should not have been removed to El Salvador” and that he responded “I don’t know” when asked why Abrego Garcia was being held.
The Justice Department placed Reuveni on leave after he made the comments.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, in an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” likened Reuveni’s comments to “a defense attorney walking in, conceding something in a criminal matter.”
“That would never happen in this country,” she said. “So he’s on administrative leave now and we’ll see what happens.”
(AP)
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2 Responses
This is a critical case for the Trump administration. If they fail to convince the public that he is a career criminal, and it turns out he is simply an Hispanic worker, married to an American citizen, who was mistakenly deported in spite of being a legal immigrant, it will discredit the entire deportation program. Most people will assume that he is typical of all those deported. The Trump administration needs to either put up evidence that the man is in fact of Salvadorian gangster, or shut up and apologize.
Arguing the US government can’t get him back is dubious. The US is paying El Salvador to hold him in its prison. In addition, since El Salvador is a party to a different set of international treaties, the US (and the persons involved) can be prosecuted or sued in the International Criminal Court and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. His family will also be able to sue in the American courts from wrongful imprisonment, loss of income, false arrest and (if he dies) wrongful death.
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