Federal Judge Orders Trump Administration to Return Deported MS-13 Suspect
A federal judge issued a firm ruling early Sunday, demanding the Trump administration return a suspected MS-13 gang member who, she claimed, was wrongfully deported to El Salvador last week.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, appointed by Obama in Maryland, sharply criticized the Trump administration for what she described as a "grievous error" that "shocks the conscience." The deportation, she said, involved sending a Salvadoran migrant to one of the most dangerous prisons in El Salvador last month. The administration later argued that it had limited ability to bring him back.
Xinis issued a forceful order with two key objectives: it expanded on her brief ruling from Friday, which demanded that the White House return migrant Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the U.S. by Monday evening, and it denied the Justice Department’s request to pause the order while an appeals court examined its legality.
In her 22-page ruling, Xinis condemned Trump officials for deporting Abrego Garcia on March 15 to El Salvador, which violated a prior court ruling that allowed him to stay in the U.S. The administration then argued neither they nor Xinis had the authority to retrieve him from the prison.
“As defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador — let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere,” Xinis wrote. “Having confessed grievous error, the defendants now argue that this court lacks the power to hear this case, and they lack the power to order Abrego Garcia’s return.”
Despite admitting to the mistake, the Trump administration continued to defend the deportation. On Sunday, Attorney General Pam Bondi defended the administration's stance on Fox News, asserting that Abrego Garcia was a gang member based on testimony from immigration agents. Bondi also announced that the Justice Department attorney who initially handled the case, Erez Reuveni, had been suspended for inadequately defending the administration's position.
Reuveni, who had been serving as the acting deputy director of the department’s immigration litigation division, was sidelined for not "following a directive from your superiors," according to the New York Times. The report also noted that Reuveni had expressed frustration with how the administration handled the case.
“At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States. Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences,” Bondi said in a statement.
The Justice Department has requested that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit temporarily block Xinis’s order, which mandates that the administration return Abrego Garcia by 11:59 p.m. on Monday.
“A judicial order that forces the Executive to engage with a foreign power in a certain way, let alone compel a certain action by a foreign sovereign, is constitutionally intolerable,” government lawyers argued. The appeals court has instructed Abrego Garcia’s attorneys to respond to the government’s filing by Sunday afternoon, according to the Associated Press.
Some observers have noted a contradiction in Xinis’s ruling, in which she asserts that Abrego Garcia was mistakenly identified as an MS-13 gang member but also acknowledges the possibility of him being persecuted by rival gangs in El Salvador. Critics argue that if he was not part of the gang, there should be no reason to fear persecution by rival groups.
The administration has further pointed out that MS-13 is designated as a terrorist organization by the State Department, a point that the Justice Department contends is outside the scope of federal court jurisdiction.