Feds balk at latest deadline in Salvadoran gang deportation case

The Trump administration on Friday said it needs more time to figure out what the Supreme Court’s new ruling means for bringing back a deported MS-13 gang suspect.

Justice Department lawyers objected to U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’ attempt to get answers Friday morning.

“Defendants are not in a position where they ’can’ share any information requested by the court. That is the reality,” the lawyers said, adding that they’re still trying to digest the Supreme Court’s intervention Thursday evening.

“Foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines,” the lawyers said.

The Supreme Court ordered the government to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the government says is a dangerous MS-13 member, though it admits he was wrongly sent to El Salvador in defiance of an immigration judge’s order.

The justices sent the case back to Judge Xinis to set new deadlines, though the high court also cautioned the judge to be wary of encroaching on President Trump’s foreign affairs powers.

But Judge Xinis, during a hearing Friday, said the high court’s order was a near-total affirmation of her efforts to get Mr. Abrego Garcia back. She scolded the government for its delays.

She was particularly miffed that the Trump team couldn’t say anything definitive about Mr. Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts right now.

“Where is he, and under whose authority?” she demanded.

“I do not have that information,” said Drew Ensign, the government’s new lawyer on the case.

“So then there is no evidence as to where he is today, and that is extremely troubling,” the judge concluded.

Mr. Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran citizen who, while purportedly wrongly deported, sits in a Salvadoran prison. The Trump administration argues it cannot demand his return.

Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers argue that the U.S. is paying El Salvador to hold him, and American officials seem to have access to the prison, so it should be able to orchestrate his return.

Mr. Abrego Garcia was in the U.S. illegally and was ordered deported by an immigration judge in 2019.

The judge also found that he would face persecution if sent back to El Salvador, so the court granted him what’s known as withholding of removal. That meant he could be deported to another country, but not to El Salvador.

On March 15, despite that ruling, he was put on one of three planeloads of people the government said were members of MS-13 or Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang.

He has now been in the Salvadoran prison for 27 days.

Judge Xinis last week ordered him returned by midnight Monday.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. erased that deadline pending the court’s action. Thursday’s new order gave the case back to Judge Xinis without any new deadline attached.

Judge Xinis then set a new deadline, which she said was “as soon as possible.”

During Friday’s hearing, Mr. Ensign declined to reveal what steps the government took last weekend, before the Supreme Court stepped in, to bring Mr. Abrego Garcia back.

“That means they’ve done nothing,” Judge Xinis retorted.

The Justice Department said the government is pondering whether to claim some of the information the judge wants is privileged and immune from disclosure.

Judge Xinis said she’ll demand daily updates from the government until she has the answers she wants about the migrant’s status.