The federal judge who supervises the case of Kilmar Abrego García led the lawyers of the Department of Justice to the task of his inaction on Tuesday, ordering government officials to testify under oath to resolve the illicit detention of Abrego García.
Saying “the Supreme Court has spoken,” the United States District Judge, Paula Xinis, ordered the accelerated discovery, in which officials feel under oath, to “apply the law to the facts.”
The judge told the lawyers of the Department of Justice that she was ordering accelerated discovery “specifically to determine if she is struggling against the court order, my court order, if she intends to comply with the judicial orders.”
“You made your jurisdictional arguments, you made the arguments of your place,” Judge Xinis told the lawyers of the Department of Justice. “You made your arguments about merits. You lost. Now it’s about the reach of the remedy.”
In his subsequent written order that grants an accelerated discovery, Judge Xinis said that the Trump administration remains forced to “take measures available to help, help or facilitate the release of Abrego García from custody in El Salvador.”
“The defendants seem to have done anything to help in the release of Abrego García de la Custody and the return to the United States,” Xinis wrote, saying that the discovery is necessary in the light of the Trump administration’s refusal to reveal “what it can” or present justification of what they cannot reveal.
Judge Xinis said that Abrego García has the right “indisputably” to the due process that the Government has denied and be free of the risk “of a serious injury” as a result of its detention in a notorious saving prison.
Photo without a date provided by the United States District Court for the Maryland district, a man identified by Jennifer Vásquez Sura when her husband, Kilmar Abrego García, is directed by force by the guards through the Center for Confinement of Terrorism in Tecolluca, El Salvador.
United States District Court for the Maryland district through AP
The judge orders the DOJ lawyers to provide requests for discovery of Abrego García’s lawyers before April 21. He also ordered Abrego García’s lawyers to notify the four government officials who have presented state updates before the court.
The statements, according to Xinis, must be completed before April 23, and the accelerated discovery is expected to be completed no later than April 28.
Abrego García, whom the Trump administration alleges is a member of the MS-13 criminal gang, is entering his second month in a mega prison in El Salvador after being deported there on March 15 despite receiving a 2019 court order that excepts his deportation to his country of origin due to the fear of persecution.
In response to the order of Judge Xinis for accelerated discovery, the lawyer of the Department of Justice, Drew Ensign, said he does not believe that the discovery is appropriate because “this is a legal dispute.”
Regarding the various interpretations of what it means that the government “facilitates” the release of Abrego García, the Ensign asked Judge Xinis to clarify, for the discovery, which means “to facilitate”, to which Xinis said he will issue an order “that expands” his vision of the definition of “facilitating.”
“Until this matter has ended and a final order is issued, we will operate within the parameters of that ruling, and is consistent with the Supreme Court, and is consistent with the simple meaning of the term,” Judge Xinis said. “And it is also consistent with the common practice in the immigration law, when an individual is unfairly eliminated from the United States.”
Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wife of Kilmar Abrego García, speaks during a press conference on the day of a hearing in the case related to Kilmar Abrego García outside the United States District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, April 15, 2025.
Katopodis/getty images
Abrego García’s lawyers said they agree with the court plan.
Fifteen minutes before the hearing, the interim general lawyer of the DHS, Joseph Mazarra, said in the Daily State Report of the Trump Administration to the Court that the Administration is “prepared to facilitate the presence of Abrego García in the United States according to those processes if it occurs in an entrance port.”
However, Mazarra said, since Abrego García is “arrested in sovereign domestic custody” of El Salvador, DHS does not have the authority to extract by force “of domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.”
If Abrego García presents in an entrance port, he would be subject to the arrest of the DHS, due to his alleged membership in the MS-13 criminal gang, Mazarra said.
“In that case, the DHS would stop him in the United States and take him to a third country or rescind his retention of elimination due to his membership in MS-13, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and takes him to El Salvador,” said Mazarra.
The development occurred one day after a long anticipated meeting of the Oval office in which the president of El Salvador said he would not return Abrego García to the United States.
The Secretary of Public Affairs of the DHS, Tricia McLaughlin, told Jay O’Brien of ABC News on Tuesday afternoon that the deportation of Abrego García to El Salvador was the result of an “administrative error.”
“It should have been sent to a detention center in Mexico, Nicaragua, Egypt,” McLaughlin said.
Trump administration officials say that Abrego García, who escaped political violence in El Salvador 2011, is a member of the MS-13 criminal gang, but to date they have provided little evidence of that statement in the Court.
Abrego García, who has been living in Maryland with his American citizen wife and his 5 -year -old son, is arrested in the notorious Cecot prison in El Salvador, along with hundreds of other alleged members of migrant gangs, under an agreement in which the Trump administration is paying $ 6 million to migrants from the United States representatives as part of the Immigration of President Donald Trump.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, at an Oval office meeting on Monday with President Trump and the visiting president of El Salvador, said that Abrego García’s return is “to El Salvador.”
“If El Salvador … I would like to return it, we would facilitate it,” he said.
Asked by reporters about Abrego García, President Bukele replied: “I don’t have the power to return it to the United States.”
In a motion presented on Tuesday before the hearing, Abrego García’s lawyers argued that the Trump administration has not taken any measure to fulfill the orders to facilitate their release.
The photo provided by Murray Osorio PLLC shows Kilmar Abrego García.
MURRAY OSORIO PLLC VIA AP
“There is no evidence that someone has requested the release of Abrego García,” they wrote in the presentation.
The lawyers also discouraged with the interpretation of the government of the word “facilitate”, which the administration has argued in judicial documents is limited to eliminating any domestic obstacle that would prevent Abrego García’s return to the United States.
Interpreting the term in that way, would argue the lawyers of Abrego García, would make the order of the Supreme Court “null” that the Government facilitates its release.
“To give any meaning to the order of the Supreme Court, at least the Government must request the release of Abrego García. To date, the Government has not done so,” they wrote in their motion.
After Judge Xinis ordered the Government to “facilitate and make” the return of Abrego García, the Supreme Court last week unanimously ruled that Judge Xinis “adequately requires that the government” facilitates “the release of Abrego Garcia de la Custody in El Salvador and ensured that his case has been handled, since he had not been unable to have been sent to El Salvador Salvador “. “.”
“However, the planned scope of the” effective “term in the order of the District Court is not clear, and can exceed the authority of the District Court. The District Court must clarify its directive, with the due consideration of the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the realization of foreign affairs,” wrote the Supreme Court, which the Trump administration has interpreted as prohibits the Court of the District of the Executive Court of the Executive Court of the Executive Court of the Executive Court. to the action that will take measures that would violate the separation of Powers.
Subsequently, Judge Xinis modified his ruling to eliminate the word “carry out”, leaving the order to “facilitate.”
In an interview on Monday night with Linsey Davis of ABC News, a Abrego García lawyer said that he hopes that Tuesday’s audience “illuminates a fire under the government to comply with the order of the Supreme Court” to facilitate the release of Abrego García.
“What we are asking [of Trump] It is exactly what the Supreme Court told him, “said lawyer Benjamin Osorio.” Personally, I have worked with DHS before to facilitate the return of several other clients who were deported and then won their cases at the circuit court or in the Supreme Court, and ICE facilitated their return. “
“So we are not asking anyone to do anything illegal,” said Osorio. “We ask you to continue the law.”
“It feels a bit like Spider-Man’s meme, where everyone points to everyone else,” Osorio said about Bukele’s statement that he does not have the power to return to Garcia. “But at the same time, I mean, we are renting spaces of Salvadorans. They are paying them to house these people, so that we could stop payment and allow us to return us.”
When asked if he trusts that Abrego García will be returned, Osorio said he was worried but hopeful.
“I am worried about the rule of law, I am worried about our Constitution, I am worried about due process,” he said. “Then, at this point, I am optimistic to see what happens at the Federal Court hearing.”
