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The Trump administration on Friday continued to pursue its stubborn fight against securing the freedom of a Maryland man it inadvertently deported to a Salvadoran prison last month despite a court order that expressly said he could remain in the United States.
Taking an increasingly combative stance, the administration defied a federal judge’s order to provide a written road map of its plans to free the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. Trump officials then repeatedly stonewalled her efforts to get the most basic information about him at a court hearing.
During the hearing, in Federal District Court in Maryland, the judge, Paula Xinis, called the administration’s evasions “extremely troubling” and demanded that the Justice Department provide her with daily updates on the White House’s progress in getting Mr. Abrego Garcia back on U.S. soil.
“The court finds that the defendants have failed to comply with this court’s order,” Judge Xinis wrote in a ruling Friday afternoon.
The conflict between the judge and the White House arose just one day after the Supreme Court unanimously ordered the administration to “facilitate” Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release from Salvadoran custody and only a few days before President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador was set to arrive in Washington for an official visit.
The recalcitrance on the part of Trump officials raised questions about why they have been so reluctant to follow the Supreme Court’s demands or leverage the president’s relationship with Mr. Bukele to simply ask for Mr. Abrego Garcia to be freed.
Judge Xinis, by ordering the government to detail its progress in getting Mr. Abrego Garcia out of El Salvador, managed to avoid an immediate showdown with the White House. But the fiery clashes left open the possibility of a future standoff.
The administration has already had friction with judges in other cases — particularly those involving President Trump’s deportation policies — but the conflict with Judge Xinis was one of the most contentious yet. Last week, a federal judge in Washington said there was a “fair likelihood” that the administration had violated one of his rulings ordering the White House to stop using a powerful wartime statute to deport scores of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador.
The dispute involving Judge Xinis emerged after the Supreme Court late Thursday told Trump officials to take steps to free Mr. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran migrant, from the CECOT prison in El Salvador, where he was sent with scores of other migrants on March 15.
The officials have already acknowledged that they made an “administrative error” when they put Mr. Abrego Garcia on the plane.
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, as well as “the prospect of further steps” it intended to take.
During the hearing, Judge Xinis asked Drew Ensign, a lawyer for the Justice Department, several questions about Mr. Abrego Garcia, including where he was at the moment. But Mr. Ensign largely responded by telling her that Trump officials had simply not provided him with the information she wanted.
For example, when Judge Xinis asked what the Trump administration had done so far to “facilitate” the release of Mr. Abrego Garcia, Mr. Ensign replied, “The defendants are not yet prepared to share that information.”
“That means they’ve done nothing,” Judge Xinis said.
The judge seemed frustrated when Mr. Ensign suggested that the government was prepared to respond to her request in a written filing on Tuesday.
“We’re not going to slow-walk this,” Judge Xinis said, noting that the demand for information about the government’s plans was an issue that the Supreme Court “has already put to bed.”
The tense exchanges came shortly after the Justice Department had sent Judge Xinis an aggressive two-page filing, accusing her of not giving department lawyers enough time to figure out what they planned to do about Mr. Abrego Garcia.
“Defendants are unable to provide the information requested by the court on the impracticable deadline set by the court hours after the Supreme Court issued its order,” the lawyers wrote.
“In light of the insufficient amount of time afforded to review the Supreme Court order,” they went on, “defendants are not in a position where they ‘can’ share any information requested by the court. That is the reality.”
Late Thursday, Judge Xinis, following the Supreme Court’s instructions, told the Justice Department to submit by 9:30 a.m. on Friday a written declaration of its plans in its efforts to retrieve Mr. Abrego Garcia, ahead of an afternoon hearing.
But shortly before 9:30 a.m., the Justice Department asked Judge Xinis to postpone the deadline for its written filing until Tuesday and push off the hearing until Wednesday. Department lawyers said they needed more time to review the Supreme Court’s order.
In an order of her own, Judge Xinis gave the government until 11:30 a.m. Friday to file a written version of its plans, but refused to change the schedule for the hearing.
Clearly frustrated, she reminded the Justice Department that the administration’s “act of sending Abrego Garcia to El Salvador was wholly illegal from the moment it happened.”
Moreover, she said the department’s request for additional time to study a four-page Supreme Court order “blinks at reality.”
While the Supreme Court’s ruling appeared at first to be a victory for Mr. Abrego Garcia and his family, it contained a line that Trump officials could ultimately use to reiterate their position that they could not be forced to bring him back from El Salvador.
In their decision, the justices never defined what they meant by “facilitate and effectuate” his return, sending that question back to Judge Xinis to flesh out.
Indeed, the justices cautioned Judge Xinis that when she clarified the steps the White House should take, her decision needed to be made “with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
In their filing on Friday, lawyers for the Justice Department said they wanted Judge Xinis to issue her clarification before they laid out what the White House planned to do to free Mr. Abrego Garcia from El Salvador.
“It is unreasonable and impracticable for defendants to reveal potential steps before those steps are reviewed, agreed upon, and vetted,” the lawyers wrote. “Foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines, in part because it involves sensitive country-specific considerations wholly inappropriate for judicial review.”
In a separate hearing on Friday, a federal judge in Texas laid out a schedule for additional papers to be filed in the case of some Venezuelan migrants whom the Trump administration is seeking to deport to El Salvador under the expansive powers of the wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act.
Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. issued an order on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Brownsville, saying that the White House cannot use the act to remove any Venezuelans being held at the El Valle Detention Center, in Raymondville, near the southern border, until at least April 23.
On Friday, Judge Rodriguez expanded his order to cover any Venezuelans in his entire judicial district — the Southern District of Texas — who might be subject to deportation under the act. He also scheduled a hearing for April 24 to discuss whether to turn his initial temporary restraining order into a more considered ruling called a preliminary injunction.
Two cases involving the Venezuelan migrants were filed this week in Texas and New York after the Supreme Court ruled on Monday night that migrants subject to deportation under the Alien Enemies Act could challenge their removal in court, but only in the places where they are being held.
Samuel Rocha IV contributed reporting from Brownsville, Texas.
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