U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi looks on during her first press conference at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., Feb. 12, 2025.
Craig Hudson | Reuters
A federal judge in Maryland on Friday ordered the Department of Justice to give her daily updates on steps it is taking to secure the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison, where he has been held since being deported last month.
District Court Judge Paula Xinis’ new order came a day after the Supreme Court upheld a directive she gave the Trump administration last week “to facilitate and effectuate the return” of Abrego Garcia, whom the DOJ says was deported to his native country due to an administrative error.
Xinis on Friday expressed frustration at a court hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, when DOJ lawyer Drew Ensign defended the department’s failure to comply with her order that the DOJ give her information about Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts and return plans.
Ensign said he had not been told by other Trump administration officials where Abrego Garcia is.
“I do not have that information,” Ensign said.
Ensign also told Xinis that the Trump administration was “not prepared to share” information with the judge the steps it may have taken to secure the Maryland resident’s return.
“My client is actively evaluating what they can share and is not yet prepared to share that info,” Ensign told Xinis. “There is a lot of interagency process that attends to these things.”
Xinis told Ensign, “There are no business hours on this court, there is no 9 to 5.”
“So from now on, until compliance, I am going to require daily updates about what the government will and won’t do,” the judge said.
In a written order later, Xinis wrote, “The Court finds that the Defendants have failed to comply with this Court’s Order” demanding information about Abrego Garcia’s status.
“Defendants made no meaningful effort to comply. Instead, they complained that the Order is ‘unreasonable and impracticable,’ and involves ‘sensitive country-specific considerations wholly inappropriate for judicial review,’ ” she wrote.
The DOJ, in an earlier court filing, told Xinis her 11:30 a.m. deadline for turning over that information was “impracticable.”
Ensign repeatedly used that same word at Friday’s hearing in justifying the DOJ’s failure to meet Xinis’ deadline.
The Supreme Court in its decision Thursday night said, “For its part, the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”
In the same decision, the Supreme Court told Xinis she needed to clarify her directive’s use of the word “effectuate … with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
Xinis soon after modified her order directed the administration to “take all available steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States as soon as possible.”
Xinis at Friday’s court hearing scheduled another hearing in the case for next Wednesday.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, speaking after the hearing to reporters, said, “For the second time in this case, they sent a lawyer into court who has not had answers.”
“He explained that his clients, the government, have chosen not to give him any information, not to give him any evidence, and the district judge, appropriately, was not willing to accept their vague and unsubstantiated assertions that ‘don’t worry judge will take care of this all in due course,’ ” said Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
He said the Trump administration should have returned Abrego Garcia “already.”
“They’ve had plenty of time between the Supreme Court’s order early yesterday evening and now. He should be here in the United States. It’s a five-hour flight,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
Abrego Garcia was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Maryland on March 12, and deported three days later.
The Trump administration admitted he “was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal,” the Supreme Court noted in its ruling.
But Justice Department lawyers also say Abrego Garcia was found to be a member of the notorious gang MS-13, which the United States has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
His lawyers deny that he belongs to MS-13, and say that the married father of three has lived in the U.S. for a decade without being charged with a crime.