Lawyers for a man mistakenly deported to El Salvador told a federal judge today that the Trump administration is misreading a Supreme Court decision that upheld the jurist’s directive that the government “facilitate” his return back to the US.
The filing comes hours before US District Judge Paula Xinis is set to hear from both sides during a hearing this afternoon in the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported on March 15.
The high court last week largely endorsed Xinis’ order that the administration work to bring Abrego Garcia back stateside, but Justice Department attorneys are pushing the argument that they understand “facilitate” to mean working to “remove any domestic obstacles” that may stand in the way of his return and not a requirement that they request Salvadoran officials to release him.
“Not so,” Abrego Garcia’s lawyers wrote in a brief filing to Xinis, adding that the high court’s decision backing the lower-court order “is rendered null if construed solely to require removing ‘domestic obstacles.’”
“To give any meaning to the Supreme Court’s order, the Government should at least be required to request the release of Abrego Garcia,” they wrote. “To date, the Government has not done so.”
Yesterday, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said during a meeting at the White House that while he could release Abrego Garcia into El Salvador, he wasn’t willing to do so. He also said he did not have the power to send him back to the United States.
The hearing is scheduled for 4 p.m. ET in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland.
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