A member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus holds a picture of Kilmar Abrego Garcia during a news conference last week. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
The Trump administration insisted Sunday that it has no legal obligation to arrange for the return of a Maryland man illegally deported from the United States, arguing that a Supreme Court ruling last week only requires officials to admit him into the country if he makes it back from a high-security prison in El Salvador.
Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge that they don’t interpret the Supreme Court’s Thursday ruling — that the administration “facilitate” Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s release — as obligating the administration to do anything more than adjust his immigration status to admit him if El Salvador’s government chooses to release him.
With El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele set to meet President Donald Trump Monday, DOJ attorneys argued the courts have no power to require the administration to engage with the Salvadoran government to reach a diplomatic solution. They contend such a potential order would amount to a violation of the separation of powers and an intrusion into what they allege is unfettered presidential power to conduct foreign relations.
“All of those requested orders involve interactions with a foreign sovereign — and potential violations of that sovereignty,” Justice Department attorneys wrote in a seven-page submission to U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis. “[A] federal court cannot compel the Executive Branch to engage in any mandated act of diplomacy or incursion upon the sovereignty of another nation.”
The administration’s position suggests officials do not view the Supreme Court’s order as compelling them to seek Abrego Garcia’s return. The Salvadoran native entered the country illegally around 2011 and had been living in Maryland. The Trump administration has admitted it deported him to El Salvador in violation of a 2019 immigration court order barring his deportation to that country. Though Abrego Garcia was denied asylum, a judge found he could not be sent to his home country because of a legitimate fear of persecution by a local gang.
The administration continued Sunday to flout a Friday order from Xinis to deliver “daily updates” to the court describing its efforts to return Abrego Garcia to the United States. Sunday’s update from Evan Katz, the assistant director of removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the administration had “no updates” for the judge. A day earlier, in a similarly threadbare update, the administration turned to Michael Kozak, the State Department’s senior bureau official in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, who said Abrego Garcia was still alive in El Salvador’s CECOT prison.
The administration is also bucking demands from Abrego Garcia’s attorneys that officials detail the arrangement to ship hundreds of foreign nationals to a notorious prison in El Salvador. One of the Sunday filings insists those details are classified and could be subject to attorney-client and state secrets privileges.
“It would be inappropriate for this Court to hastily order production of these sensitive documents,” Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign wrote.
The administration also said it would resist efforts by Xinis to demand testimony from officials about their thinking on Abrego Garcia’s potential return, saying such disclosures “could interfere with ongoing diplomatic discussions — particularly in the context of President Bukele’s ongoing trip to the United States.”
Still, the administration’s narrow view of its obligations under the Supreme Court’s ruling appears to up the stakes of a hearing Xinis has scheduled for Tuesday afternoon to assess the steps officials are taking to arrange for Abrego Garcia’s return.
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