The US Department of Justice on Saturday told an appeals court that a judge did not have the authority to order the White House to broker the return of a Maryland man who was mistakenly sent to a notorious El Salvador prison, and it suspended a government lawyer who admitted in court that the deportation was an error.
The government’s attorneys asked the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to pause a Friday ruling by US District Judge Paula Xinis, who ordered the administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return to the US by late tonight.
“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,” they wrote.
Photo: AP
The appeals court asked Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to respond to the government’s filing by yesterday afternoon.
Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national, was arrested in Maryland and deported last month despite an immigration judge’s 2019 ruling that shielded him from deportation to El Salvador, where he faced likely persecution by local gangs.
His mistaken deportation, described by the White House as an “administrative error,” has outraged many and raised concerns about expelling noncitizens who were granted permission to be in the US.
During a court hearing on Friday at a federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, US Department of Justice attorney Erez Reuveni conceded to Xinis that Abrego Garcia should not have been removed from the US or sent to El Salvador. Reuveni could not tell the judge upon what authority he was arrested in Maryland.
“I’m also frustrated that I have no answers for you for a lot of these questions,” he said.
By Saturday, Reuveni had been placed on leave by the justice department, a department spokesperson confirmed. His name was not on Saturday’s filing to the appeals court.
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