(Bloomberg) — A Trump administration lawyer refused to tell a judge what the government is doing to bring back a wrongly deported Maryland man during a contentious hearing a day after the Supreme Court ordered the US to facilitate the man’s return from a notorious prison in El Salvador.
US District Court Judge Paula Xinis clashed with Justice Department lawyers a day after the Supreme Court said the government must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Federal officials have conceded he was wrongly deported despite a 2019 order saying he shouldn’t be sent to El Salvador.
After the high court ruled Thursday night, Xinis ordered US lawyers to tell her Abrego Garcia’s location and status in prison, and what they were doing to facilitate his return. She gave them until Friday morning to answer her questions in writing, but they said that wasn’t enough time. At a court hearing on Friday afternoon, Xinis grew impatient with a Justice Department lawyer.
“This is a direct question — where is he and under whose authority?” Xinis asked in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“We are still internally reviewing the Supreme Court’s decision and vetting what we can say to this court,” Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign said.
“There is no evidence as to where he is today and that is extremely troubling,” Xinis said.
The showdown came after the Supreme Court put a limit on Trump’s deportation power as he pushes for sweeping authority with minimal judicial review. It follows the Supreme Court’s decision Monday to let the administration use a wartime law to try to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members as long as they first have a chance to make their case to a judge.
Ensign said the government thinks the Supreme Court order means they should first decide whether Abrego Garcia’s case implicates President Donald Trump’s foreign policy powers or involves privileged information. The judge rejected Ensign’s argument, saying she will require daily updates from government officials who actually have the information she is seeking.
“We’re going to make a record of what, if anything, the government is doing or not doing,” Xinis said.
Ensign replied: “The United States intends to comply with the Supreme Court’s order.”
Trump officials have said that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 criminal gang, which his lawyers and Xinis rejected.
An appellate court panel upheld Xinis in a ruling on Monday, when Judge Stephanie Thacker said the government “has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process.” She said the government’s position that federal courts are powerless to intervene was “unconscionable.”
In its ruling on Thursday night, the Supreme Court said the US must “‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
Abrego Garcia had been lawfully living in Maryland with his wife and three children, all US citizens. Under a 2019 immigration court order, he can’t be deported to El Salvador, where he says he would face gang-based extortion and persecution.
Immigration officials arrested Abrego Garcia on March 12 and accused him of playing a “prominent role” in MS-13, though he hasn’t been convicted of a crime or charged with one. He was flown to El Salvador on March 15 along with more than 200 other alleged gang members.
The Supreme Court case is Noem v. Abrego Garcia, 24A949.
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