A federal judge in Maryland Friday ordered the Trump administration to return a national from El Salvador by April 7 who was erroneously deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, despite an order blocking such removal.
The ruling from U.S. District Court of Maryland Judge Paula Xinis sets up a fight with the Trump administration. Officials have admitted the deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia of Beltsville, Maryland, was a mistake, but have stood by their actions.
The case could also mean that the more than 250 Venezuelan men in a separate case who were removed under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 without due process can be returned to the U.S.
Cheers could be heard outside the courthouse after the order, as dozens of protestors waited for the decision.
‘It was unconstitutional’
Xinis, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, said “there is no evidence to hold” Abrego Garcia at the notorious prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, known as CECOT, and even noted his March 12 arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had no basis for removal.
“That means from the moment he was seized, it was unconstitutional,” Xinis said.
The attorney representing the Department of Justice, Erez Reuveni, said the Trump administration is not challenging the merits of the case and the only argument it has is that the Maryland court lacks jurisdiction because Abrego Garcia is in the custody of El Salvador.
Xinis pressed on what grounds Abrego Garcia was removed to the prison.
Reuveni said he has no idea and was not given any information from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
She asked why Abrego Garcia could not be returned to the United States, which is what his family was seeking in Friday’s preliminary injunction hearing.
Reuveni said that he has asked officials that same question, and has not received an answer that is “satisfactory.”
Reuveni made one request to the court, that Xinis give the administration of President Donald Trump 24 hours to try to rectify the situation.
U.S. paying $6 million
Attorneys for Abrego Garcia are not only asking for him to be returned, but for the Trump administration to cease payments to the mega-prison for his detainment. The White House has stated it’s paying the government of El Salvador $6 million to detain nearly 300 men.
Reuveni said because Abrego Garcia is in custody in El Salvador, he is no longer in U.S. custody and therefore cannot be retrieved.
Xinis pushed back on that argument, noting that the U.S. and El Salvador have a contract to detain the men at the prison.
Reuveni said that it’s not a contract the U.S. and El Salvador have.
Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, the attorney for Abrego Garcia, contended that “there is significant coordination between the two governments.”
He noted that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has filmed herself while visiting CECOT and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has a close relationship with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.
Xinis said to Reuveni that because the U.S. is paying El Salvador $6 million to detain the men, “I can draw the logical argument that the U.S. is the payer.”
She asked Reuveni if he has any evidence to show her that contradicts that knowledge.
“The government made a choice here to produce no evidence,” Reuveni said.
Wartime law invoked
On March 15, three deportation flights left for El Salvador with two planes carrying Venezuelans removed under the wartime law and a third plane that carried nationals from El Salvador, including Abrego Garcia.
A 2019 order from an immigration judge deemed that Abrego Garcia should be removed from the U.S. However, he was granted protection because it was more “likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs in El Salvador” if he were returned, according to court documents.
Attorneys for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could have challenged that decision, but did not. Instead, Abrego Garcia was required to check in with ICE every year, including earlier this year.
When Abrego Garcia was driving his 5-year-old son home on March 12, he was pulled over by ICE and informed that his “status had changed,” and was quickly transferred to a detention center in Texas. Within three days he was on a plane to CECOT, despite the order barring his removal to El Salvador.
Xinis asked Reuveni under what authority Abrego Garcia was removed and he said he didn’t know. All he was given was a declaration by ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert L. Cerna, he said.
“This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13,” Cerna wrote in a Monday court filing.
Xinis said if the government could not cite what legal authority he was being removed under, “then there is no basis to have seized him in the first place. That’ how I’m looking at it.”
ICE and the Department of Justice have admitted the removal was an “administrative error,” but the Trump administration has stood by its decision.
White House gets involved
Vice President J.D. Vance wrote on social media, without evidence, that Abrego Garcia was a convicted member of the MS-13 gang and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt this week echoed Vance.
“The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang,” Leavitt said.
Because of those comments by Leavitt, Sandoval-Moshenberg asked the judge to “keep the government on a tight leash.”
Abrego Garcia does not have a criminal record in the U.S., El Salvador or anywhere else, Sandoval-Moshenberg has stated.
Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. without legal authorization in 2011, fleeing violence in his home country of El Salvador, according to court records. Six years later while he was looking for work at a Home Depot in Hyattsville, Maryland, he was taken into custody by Prince George’s County Police Department.
While there, he was questioned about gang affiliation and law enforcement did not believe he was not a member of the MS-13 gang, according to court records.
The evidence officers submitted included Abrego Garcia wearing a Chicago Bulls hat, a hoodie and a statement from a confidential informant that stated he was a member of MS-13, according to court documents.
While he was never charged with, or convicted of being, in a gang, he was kept in ICE detention while his case proceeded before an immigration judge.
–Ariana Figueroa, Florida Phoenix
R.S. says
According to EU news, some deported people are fans of Real Madrid, which has as part of its logo a crown. That does not make them gang members, altough Latin Kings, a gang, nay also have a crown as a logo. Just because US-Americans have no appreciation for and less knowledge of the King of Sports, futbol, should not entail that this administration mistakes fans of Real Madrid with Latin Kings and herd them all into an off-site concentration camp. This action is stupid to the nth degree, but it has real and very painful consequences for many people. “We’ve made a mistake, but we cannot do anything about it,” is lethal stupidity; and in a democracy, everyone who elected those clowns bears responsibility.