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The judge, clearly frustrated, reminded the Justice Department that the administration’s act of mistakenly sending a Maryland man to El Salvador “was wholly illegal from the moment it happened.”
- April 11, 2025, 11:05 a.m. ET
Lawyers for a Maryland man who was unlawfully deported to a prison in El Salvador assailed the Trump administration on Friday for trying to delay its explanation for how it plans to bring him back, calling the move a “stunning display of arrogance and cruelty.”
“The government continues to delay, obfuscate and flout court orders, while a man’s life and safety is at risk,” the lawyers wrote in court papers filed in the case.
On Thursday evening, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Trump officials needed to “facilitate” the return to the United States of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran migrant who flown from Texas to El Salvador on March 15.
The officials have already acknowledged that they made an “administrative error” when they put Mr. Abrego Garcia on the plane despite a previous court order that had expressly prohibited sending him back to his homeland.
As part of its ruling, the Supreme Court told the administration that it should be prepared to “share what it can concerning the steps it has taken” to get Mr. Abrego Garcia back on U.S. soil as well as “the prospect of further steps” it intends to take.
Echoing the justices’ demand, Judge Paula Xinis, who is handling the case in Federal District Court in Maryland, told the Justice Department to submit to her by 9:30 a.m. on Friday a written declaration of what the administration had already done and what it planned to do in its efforts to retrieve Mr. Abrego Garcia from El Salvador. Judge Xinis also set a hearing for 1 p.m. on Friday to discuss the next steps in the case.
