A showdown may be imminent at the Supreme Court now that the Justice Department has hedged again.
A federal judge denied the Justice Department’s request for more time on Friday to explain its plans for returning a man to the U.S. after the government deported him to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued a two-page order Friday after Justice Department prosecutors cited a need for a “reasonable period of time to review the Supreme Court’s order,” issued late Thursday that ordered the government to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the U.S..
Assistant U.S. attorney Drew Ensign griped in Friday’s motion that there was just a “mere 30 minutes into the business day” that would allow them to follow the Supreme Court’s instruction.
That was “inconsistent,” Ensign said, with the high court’s consideration for the “due regard for deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
It would be “impracticable” for the federal government to comply, Ensign wrote.
Instead, Ensign said he wants until April 15 to submit the information and a hearing to follow on April 16.
In her order, Xinis slammed the Justice Department, saying their inability to “meaningfully” review the orders they were given “blinks at reality.”
A hearing before Xinis in Maryland is still scheduled for 1 p.m.
The Justice Department had until11:30 a.m. Friday to provide information on where Garcia is located, what his current custody status is, what steps the government has already taken to return him and what the federal government is doing now.
They didn’t quite meet that deadline. Instead, they filed their response nearly an hour late with a snappy retort for the judge.
“The Supreme Court’s order directs the Court to ‘clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs,’” wrote Yaakov Roth, the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil division.
The Justice Department argues that because the court did not define what it means to “facilitate or effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return when he is already in the custody of a foreign nation, then “needless to say, defendants were under no obligation to take action under the court’s order while it was administratively stayed by the Chief Justice of the United States.”
As such, the Justice Department claims it is “not in a position where they ‘can’ share any information requested by the court.”
“That is the reality,” Roth wrote. “Defendants received the order late in the evening last night. They are reviewing the order and actively evaluating next steps. It is unreasonable and impracticable for Defendants to reveal potential steps before those steps are reviewed, agreed upon, and vetted. Foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines, in part because it involves sensitive country-specific considerations wholly inappropriate for judicial review.”
In a motion filed earlier Friday, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers accused the Justice Department of continuing to “delay, obfuscate and flout court orders, while a man’s life and safety is at risk.”
Xinis had ordered the Justice Department on Thursday to inform her of Garcia’s whereabouts by 9:30 Friday morning.
She had ordered the government to return Abrego Garcia a week ago. That order wasn’t stayed until Monday afternoon and the Supreme Court lifted it Thursday.
That means the government “should have been taking actions last night and this morning, and it can report on those,” Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Jonathan Cooper, wrote Friday.
“The Government should likewise be in a position to tell the Court in general terms what its further plan is to facilitate Mr. Abrego Garcia’s return, and who in the Government is responsible for implementing that plan,” Cooper added.
The Justice Department had participated in “another stunning display of arrogance and cruelty,” Cooper said.
ICE officials admitted Abrego Garcia was erroneously sent to prison last month. Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen, was under an immigration court order that barred his removal to El Salvador due to fears of persecution in the country.
Though Robert Cerna, the acting field director for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, admitted in court in March that the agency made an “administrative error” when removing Garcia, it did not stop the Trump administration from claiming that because Garcia was already out of the U.S., the courts lacked jurisdiction to return him.
The Trump administration claims that Abrego Garcia is affiliated with the gang known as MS-13 even though the Salvadoran national has never been charged nor convicted of a crime. His attorneys have vehemently denied those allegations. The 29-year-old married father of three had a permit from the Department of Homeland Security to work legally in the U.S. Before he was snatched up by authorities on March 12, Abrego Garcia was a sheet metal apprentice who was pursuing his journeyman license. He was deported on March 15.
A Justice Department lawyer, Erez Reuveni, admitted in court last month that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported. Reuveni was taken off the case by Attorney General Pam Bondi in short order and put on administrative leave.
An attorney for Abrego Garcia did not immediately return a request for comment.
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