The judge overseeing the high-profile deportation case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant who entered the U.S. illegally and is allegedly a Salvadoran gang member, filed an order that was agreed on by both parties to postpone further discovery of information regarding the Trump administration’s efforts to return Abrego Garcia to the states.
The Wednesday decision came just after U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis filed a separate order on Tuesday, demanding that the Department of Homeland Security present its plan.
“For weeks, Defendants have sought refuge behind vague and unsubstantiated assertions of privilege, using them as a shield to obstruct discovery and evade compliance with this Court’s orders,” Xinis wrote. “Defendants have known, at least since last week, that this Court requires specific legal and factual showings to support any claim of privilege. Yet they have continued to rely on boilerplate assertions. That ends now.”
She also gave defendants until Wednesday evening to provide legitimate details to “preserve their privilege claims.”
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign filed a sealed motion requesting a stay in response to Xinis’ order demanding testimony and plans of Abrego Garcia’s return, according to The Associated Press. The attorneys of Abrego Garcia apparently also filed a sealed motion in opposition.
The stay is granted until April 30 — no clarification as to why was mentioned in the order, but it was stated that an agreement of the parties was made.
The battle of Abrego Garcia’s return
The ongoing legal challenges surrounding the Salvadoran man, who, until March, had been residing in Maryland with his wife and family, have become a national spotlight in the Trump administration’s tactics to deport apparent immigrant gang members who are living in the country illegally out of the U.S.
Despite the U.S. Department of Justice’s acknowledgement that Abrego Garcia’s deportation was an “administrative error,” President Donald Trump’s advisers have been adamant in their decision to do so, refuting the opposition’s arguments that Abrego Garcia is nothing more than a Maryland father.
Though he’s never been charged in court, Abrego Garcia unlawfully entered the U.S. from El Salvador in 2011 and was among the alleged MS-13 gang members sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center, a megaprison in El Salvador, last month.
He has been accused of gang affiliation with MS-13, deemed a national terrorist organization by the U.S., called an “alleged woman beater” by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt after revealing that his wife filed for an order of protection against him in 2021 regarding domestic abuse, and more recently, DHS sources said that in 2022, Abrego Garcia “was pulled over driving an SUV belonging to confessed human smuggler and illegal alien Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes,” per Fox News.
Advocates and Democratic officials have argued that Abrego Garcia has been denied his constitutional right to due process, which would allow him to rebut any claims.
Multiple Democratic lawmakers have since traveled to El Salvador, seeking to meet with Abrego Garcia. Only one has been successful, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen.
“His conversation with me was the first communication he’d had with anybody outside of prison since he was abducted,” Van Hollen told the press following his return to the U.S. after meeting with Abrego Garcia. “He said he felt very sad about being in a prison because he had not committed any crimes.”
Florida Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost told reporters in El Salvador on Monday that the Trump administration’s deportation of hundreds of alleged gang members is completely disregarding the rule of law.
“The Constitution applies to all people in our country, due process applies to all people in our country, it’s one of the things that sets our country apart,” he said.
“We’re in a situation where the administration has sent someone here to El Salvador by mistake, admitted to it, a Supreme Court decision has come down to say, ‘You need to facilitate the return of this man back to the United States so he can go through due process,’ and the administration is saying, ‘No, we’re not going to do it,” Frost added.
But Trump said Tuesday that the number of the millions of immigrants who came into the country illegally during the Biden administration makes it impossible to grant every single person a trial.
He also posted about Abrego Garcia on social media:
“This is the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, that the Courts are trying to save from being deported? He was supposed to be, according to the Judge and the Democrats, a wonderful father from Maryland, but then they noticed he had ‘MS-13′ tattooed onto his knuckles (and lots of really bad stories about his past!). This is the gang that is, perhaps, the worst of them all. What is wrong with our Country?”
His administration has confirmed that if Abrego Garcia were to return to U.S. soil, he would be deported to another country.