A federal judge on Friday, April 11, criticized a government lawyer who could not explain what, if something, the Trump administration has done to organize the return of a Maryland man who was deposited by mistake in Salvador. The United States government lawyer also struggled to provide information about the whereabouts of Kilmar Abrego García, despite Thursday’s decision of the United States Supreme Court that the Trump administration must bring it back.
“Where is he and under whose authority?” The American district judge, Paula Xinis, asked in a room in the Maryland court. “I’m not asking for state secrets,” he said. “All I know is that he is not here. He was forbidden to send him to El Salvador, and now I am asking a very simple question: where is he hears?”
Drew Ensign, an attached deputy attorney general, said that the Government has no evidence to contradict the belief that Abrego García is still in El Salvador. Xinis sounded exasperated that Ensign could not say where Agry García is, what the government has done to organize its return or what else to do to return to the United States. “That is extremely worrying,” he said.
“Have you done something?”
The judge repeatedly asked Ensign about what has been done, asking precisely: “Have you done something?” – To which Ensign said he had no personal knowledge of what the leg had done. “So that means anything,” said the judge, and added later: “Despite the clear directive of this court, its clients have done nothing to facilitate the return of Mr. Abrego García.”
For his part, Ensign emphasized that the government was “actively considering what could be done” and said that the case of Abrego García involved three cabinet agencies and significant coordination. Before the audience ended, Xinis ordered the US to provide daily status updates on the plans to return to Abrego García. “I guess my message, so it’s Horth, it’s: if you can do it, do it tomorrow,” he said.
In a letter presented before the hearing, Trump’s administration lawyers told Xinis that his deadline for information was not “little practical” and that they lacked sufficient time to review the ruling of the Supreme Court of Thorsday. The United States lawyers also wrote that it was “unreasonable” for the United States government “to reveal possible steps before they review, agree and examine the steps.” “Foreign issues cannot operate in judicial terms, partly because it involves specific sensitive considerations of the country totally inappropriate for judicial review,” the lawyers wrote.
‘I should be here in the United States’
After the hearing, Abrego García’s lawyer told reporters that “he should be here in the United States.” Flanked by Abrego García’s wife and backed by supporters, lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said he expects a “significant” government update on Saturday. “If they don’t take the order today, we will answer,” he said.
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President Donald Trump indicated Friday night that he would return Abrego Garcia to the United States. If the judges of the Superior Court said they brought him back, “he would,” said the president. “I have great respect for the Supreme Court,” Trump told journalists traveling on Air Force One. Meanwhile, El Salvador president Nayib Bukele is expected to visit Washington on Monday. The White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, was asked on Friday if Trump wanted Bukele to bring Abrego García. But Leavitt said Bukele is a visit to talk about cooperation between the two countries “that is at its highest point.”
Abrego García’s wife, Jennifer Vásquez Sura, Thorsday said that order has been an “emotional roller coaster.” “I am waiting anxiously that Kilmar is here in my arms, and in our house, putting our children to bed, knowing that this nightmare is almost at an end. I will continually fight until my husband is at home,” he said.
Persecution of local gangs
Abrego García fled from El Salvador due to the persecution of local gangs, according to their registries of the Immigration Court. He lived in Maryland for approximately 14 years, a duration that worked in construction, married an American citizen and was raising three children with disabilities. In 2019, he was accused by the Local Police of being in the MS-13 gang, according to judicial records. Hey denied the accusation and was never accused of a crime.
Subsequently, an immigration judge from the United States protected him from deportation to El Salvador because or probable pandilla persecution in his native country, according to records. He had a federal permit to work in the United States and was a sheet metal, said his lawyer.
The Trump administration deported Abrego García to a prison in El Salvador anyway, then described the error as “an administrative error”, but insisted that he was in the MS-13. The Administration also argued that the United States lacked the power to recover the Salvadore National because it is no longer in the United States.
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