Judge again orders Trump administration to return man mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: AP

Updated 2:36 PM EDT, April 6, 2025


GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A federal judge is for the second time ordering the Trump administration to return a Maryland man who was mistakenly sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador, blasting the U.S. government in a ruling Sunday that noted a now-suspended Justice Department lawyer admitted he didn’t know why the man was being held.

The order from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis reaffirms a ruling she gave days earlier, shooting down arguments that the government can’t facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia because he is no longer in U.S. custody.

“As defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador — let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere,” Xinis wrote. “Having confessed grievous error, the defendants now argue that this Court lacks the power to hear this case, and they lack the power to order Abrego Garcia’s return.”

The Justice Department has asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to pause Xinis’ ruling. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national, was arrested in Maryland and deported last month despite an immigration judge’s 2019 ruling that shielded him from deportation to El Salvador, where he faced likely persecution by local gangs.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/ice-trump-immigration-el-savador-5d2f7b919cb1a4ed5ce31d44f391d8f5

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Link to ORDER (PDF) - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.31.0.pdf

[bucolic_frolic]

1. We're still dancing around Trump & DOJ claiming rulings don't apply to them.

We surely have the ability to ask foreign governments to arrest criminals wanted in the US. We do it all the time. So the idea our court rulings don't apply to people on foreign soil is lame in the extreme not to mention unjust in the humanitarian sense in this instance. But to the point we're still fighting to have US court rulings obeyed by this administration.

[twodogsbarking]

2. O.K. Corral 25.

[Scrivener7]

3. Unless someone involved is arrested and charged with something, that poor guy will never be returned.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. IIRC, we are actually PAYING El Salvador to take the people we sent them

so the government needs to cough up the money and PAY AGAIN to remove them.

[Alice B.]

5. That was my question -- isn't the TSF administration essentially just "boarding" deportees there?

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Basically.

I think the intent was originally to send them all to Guantanamo but then they realized the facility was no where near ready for "30,000" or whatever idiotic number they threw out there, so those who were sent there were removed and are sitting in Louisiana, while select others were sent to El Salvador - probably due it its "photo op" potential to induce "fear" in the populace.

I remember way way back in the day when "the Turkish Prisons" (as they were referenced) were always advertised to be"really bad".

[Alice B.]

10. Oh! I (wistfully) remember "Turkish prisons" as (I thought merely) a movie gag...

[Frasier Balzov]

6. They basically told the judge

You bring him home judge, and best of luck to you.

But Pam Bondi suspended their courtroom attorney who said Sorry judge please give the government more time.

[Bayard]

7. They just stick their tongues out at judges

There will be no respect or compliance unless arrests start happening.

[republianmushroom]

8. And I'm not going to order you again, (I hope).

And what if they don't judge ?