Judge in Abrego Garcia case tells DOJ she has "no tolerance for gamesmanship"

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Last edited Tue Apr 15, 2025, 06:41 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: CBS News

Updated on: April 15, 2025 / 5:05 PM EDT


Greenbelt, Maryland — A federal judge on Tuesday admonished the Department of Justice for not complying with her order to facilitate the release of a Maryland man who the Trump administration admitted had been mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador. "We have to give process to both sides, but we're going to move… there will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding," U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis said at the start of a hearing in the case involving Kilmer Abrego Garcia, who was sent to El Salvador last month.

Lawyers for Abrego Garcia and the Justice Department faced off in Xinis' courtroom Tuesday, one day after El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele said he would not be returning Abrego Garcia. Drew Ensign, a Justice Department attorney, said Tuesday that the Trump administration would facilitate Abrego Garcia's return if he arrived at a port of entry, and continued to dodge straightforward questions on what the Trump administration is doing, if anything, to return the man.

Joseph Mazzarra, acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a filing shortly before the hearing that if Abrego Garcia does show up at a port of entry, he would be detained by the Department of Homeland Security and either removed to a third country or be stripped of a legal protection that he was granted in 2019, which forbid immigration authorities from removing him to his home country of El Salvador.

To revoke that legal status, known as withholding of removal, the Department of Homeland would have to re-open his immigration case and ask an immigration judge to terminate it. Xinis ordered for the depositions to be completed by April 23. When the Justice Department suggested they might invoke privilege, Xinis told them "cancel vacation, cancel other appointments" and added that she expects "all hands on deck."

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kilmar-abrego-garcias-court-trump-deportation-el-salvador-president/