A federal judge scolded the Trump administration on Tuesday for dragging its feet in complying with a Supreme Court order that directed the White House to “facilitate” the release of a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to a prison in El Salvador last month.
“To date nothing has been done,” the judge, Paula Xinis, told a lawyer for the Justice Department. “Nothing.”
The stern words came during a hearing in Federal District Court in Maryland, where Judge Xinis said that she intended to force Trump officials to answer questions — both in writing and in depositions — about what they had done so far to get the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, out of the prison.
Noting that every passing day was another that Mr. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old father of three, suffered harm in Salvadoran custody, the judge set up a fast schedule for officials to provide documents and sit for depositions.
“We’re going to move,” she said. “There will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding.”
The hearing came only one day after President Trump said at an Oval Office news conference that he was powerless in seeking Mr. Abrego Garcia’s freedom. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, sitting beside Mr. Trump, said he had no intention of releasing the man.
The case of Mr. Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal worker accused of being a member of the violent street gang MS-13, has emerged in recent days as yet another flashpoint in Mr. Trump’s aggressive plans to deport immigrants the government has deemed to be criminals, even if there is little evidence to support its claims.
It has also become the latest test of the White House’s willingness to defy court orders and potentially shatter the traditional, but increasingly fragile, balance of power between the executive and judicial branches.
Three courts, including the Supreme Court, have now ruled that the White House is required to take at least some steps toward freeing Mr. Abrego Garcia from a notorious Salvadoran prison, known as CECOT, where he was sent with scores of other migrants on March 15.
Until this week, the Trump administration had acknowledged that he had been inadvertently deported in violation of a previous court order that expressly prohibited him from being sent to El Salvador. On Tuesday, however, top officials, including Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s chief domestic policy adviser, changed course, suddenly declaring that the deportation had been purposeful and legal.
During the hearing, Judge Xinis, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, clearly signaled that she wanted to get to the bottom of the administration’s obfuscations and delays. She couched her decision to compel Trump officials to reveal what they have done behind the scenes as a first step toward figuring out if the administration has been acting in bad faith and ignoring court orders.
