According to the attorneys for a man from Maryland who was mistakenly deported to a Salvadoran prison, the Trump administration has broken an order from the Supreme Court by not even trying to get him back, they claim. The Supreme Court last week determined the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national now held in the country’s most notorious prison.
But attorneys for Abrego Garcia contend the Trump administration has not
even tried to do so.
“The Government asserts that the meaning of the word "facilitate"
is restricted to "remov[ing] any domestic obstacles that would otherwise
impede the alien's ability to return here." Not so. The Supreme Court
ordered the government “to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in
El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he
not been improperly sent to El Salvador’,” lawyers wrote in a Tuesday brief.
"The government ought to at least be required to request the release of
Abrego Garcia to give the order of the Supreme Court any meaning. To
date, the government has not done so.”
Attorneys for the Justice Department and Abrego Garcia are set to appear
before U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis later Tuesday.
On Monday, attorneys for the Justice Department flouted an order from Xinis
to provide an update on Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts and efforts to secure his
return, instead submitting an affidavit from a Department of Homeland Security
official suggesting they were not obligated to do so.
The Trump administration’s position on the case was made clear in an Oval
Office meeting Monday alongside Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
“That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us,”
Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
“The Supreme Court ruled, president, that if El Salvador wants to return him
… we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.”
During the same meeting, Bukele referred to Abrego Garcia as a terrorist.
“How could I return him to the United States? I bring him into the United
States smugly? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous,”
Bukele said.
I am powerless to bring him back to the United States. I’m not releasing — I
mean, we’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys on Tuesday noted that Secretary of State Marco
Rubio recently announced that 10 more men had been sent to CECOT, the
Salvadoran prison known by its acronym in Spanish.
“That involved all three of the actions that the government contends the
courts cannot order: “(i) mak[ing] demands of the El Salvadoran government,
(ii) dispatch[ing] personnel onto the soil of an independent, sovereign nation,
and (iii) send[ing] an aircraft into the airspace of a sovereign foreign
nation,” they wrote.
“The government holds contractual rights to send prisoners to its ‘contract
facility,’ where the United States has ‘outsourced’ part of its prison system,
and it holds ‘the power to secure and transport [its] detainees, Abrego Garcia
included.’ It can exercise those same contractual rights to request their
release, as the detainees are being held “pending the United States’ decision
on [their] long-term disposition.”
