The federal judge handling the case of a wrongly deported Maryland dad is losing patience with the Trump administration’s foot-dragging over his return to the U.S.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said “nothing has been done” by the government to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose return to the U.S. after his mistaken deportation to El Salvador has yet to be initiated—despite a unanimous Supreme Court ruling ordering that the administration “facilitate” it.
“To date, what the record shows is that nothing has been done. Nothing,” she said in a court hearing on Tuesday as she ordered an “intense” two-week probe into the Trump administration’s refusal to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
“We’re going to move. There will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding,” Xinis said. “There are no business hours while we do this… Cancel vacations, cancel other appointments. I’m usually pretty good about things like that in my court, but not this time. So, I expect all hands on deck.”
The judge said she anticipated that four Homeland Security and State Department officials would now have to sit for depositions with Abrego Garcia’s lawyers by April 23.
Each day that Abrego Garcia spends in a notorious El Salvador mega-prison is “a day of further irreparable harm,” Xinis said.
In a White House meeting with President Donald Trump on Monday, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said it was “preposterous” to suggest that he order Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S.
“How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” he said.
Xinis said Bukele’s comments would have “real infirmities” if they were uttered in a court of law: “It is not a direct response, nor is the quip about smuggling someone into the United States.”
If the U.S. was “facilitating” Abrego Garcia’s return, Xinis said, then there would be no “smuggling.”
The Trump administration has used semantics to justify its noncompliance with the Supreme Court order “to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.”
In a seven-page filing with Xinis, Justice Department attorneys argued that they interpreted “facilitate” to mean removing obstacles in the U.S. that might impede Abrego Garcia’s return—but not actually bringing him back to the country.
“Indeed, no other reading of ‘facilitate’ is tenable—or constitutional—here,” they wrote.
The Trump administration has repeatedly accused Abrego Garcia of belonging to the international criminal gang MS-13, but Xinis earlier said she had yet to see evidence proving that.
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said allegations of Abrego Garcia’s involvement with MS-13 were based on him wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie, as well as a confidential informant’s claim that he was part of the gang’s clique in New York, even though he’s never lived there.
