DOJ says judge can’t order return of Salvadoran man wrongly deported

Government attorneys slammed a judge’s order to return a Salvadoran immigrant to the United States, arguing in a Saturday filing that the judge’s directive was “indefensible” and that the U.S. has “no authority” to make a sovereign nation release the man.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis directed the administration to arrange the return of Kilmar Abrego García, a Salvadoran immigrant married to a U.S. citizen, by no later than 11:59 p.m. Monday. The Justice Department’s response asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to step in and immediately pause Xinis’s order.

“The United States does not have control over Abrego Garcia. Or the sovereign nation of El Salvador. Nevertheless, the court’s injunction commands that Defendants accomplish, somehow, Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States in give or take one business day. That order is indefensible,” Justice Department lawyers wrote. The appeal argues at length that the government has no power to return Abrego García because he is in the custody of the Salvadoran government, though the Trump administration says it is paying El Salvador about $6 million for the detention of deportees.

Xinis’ ruling followed an extraordinary admission from a Justice Department lawyer at the hearing Friday that even he has struggled to obtain answers about why officers deported Abrego García, despite a court order forbidding it because he had fled death threats from gang members in El Salvador. The Trump administration deported the longtime Maryland resident to a prison filled with alleged gang members.

The hasty removal of Abrego García and hundreds of other immigrants to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, where human rights groups have said inmates have faced beatings and shortages of food and water, has spurred criticism that the Trump administration has imprisoned people for matters that are typically civil violations of immigration law. Government officials have argued that they are deporting serious offenders, but they have not identified most of them or provided evidence to support their allegations.

Abrego García’s lawyers have said he had no criminal record in the U.S. or in El Salvador. His immigration troubles began in March 2019, when he said police in Prince George’s County detained him and other young men looking for construction work at a Home Depot, according to federal court records.