1 of 3 | Milmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father, was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration to a supermax prison in El Salvador. Photo by Tia Dufour/U.S. Department of Homeland Security/UPI | License Photo
April 4 (UPI) — A federal judge on Friday ordered the U.S. government to return home Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father mistakenly deported by the Trump administration to a supermax prison in El Salvador.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xini in Maryland granted the motion from his attorneys.
“I am going to grant the motion for preliminary injunction I’ve reviewed, and I’ll read this word for word, so that there is no dispute that the oral order is the written order,” Xini, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, said during the hearing.
She ordered the government to return Abrego Garcia to the United States no later than 11:59 p.m. Monday.
Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran national who has not been charged with a crime and who has had protected immigration status in the United States since 2019, has sued federal officials, maintaining that a judge’s 2019 protection order should have prevented his deportation.
“Not only was plaintiff Abrego Garcia removed to El Salvador in direct violation of federal law, but to make matters worse, defendants are paying the government of El Salvador a sum of money to incarcerate him in the infamous CECOT prison, where he is being subjected to torture and an imminent risk of death,” his attorneys said in their petition filed Monday.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, called Xinis a “Marxist judge [who] now thinks she’s president of El Salvador” in post on X.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is named in the suit. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is part of DHS.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said, despite the mistake, no government efforts have been made to return Abrego Garcia to the United States.
“Every other time that that happened, as soon as I essentially convinced them that they messed up. Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, bent over backward to try to fix it. Right now, they haven’t taken a single step.”
He was sent to El Salvador in a deal to pay El Salvador $6 million to house deported migrants, authorities in the Central American nation said.
A Justice Department attorney said there was no contract.
“The way I see the record, though, is that there is an agreement between your clients and El Salvador where you clients are [paying] upward of $6 million to house individuals,” the judge said. “There’s nothing to suggest that they’re still not in the custody of DHS and immigration.”
The U.S. government has acknowledged there was an “administrative error” and an “oversight,” but because he no longer is in U.S. custody, the court can’t order him to be returned to the United States, nor can a judge order El Salavador to return him, according to a filing earlier.
“This case is certainly important to Abrego Garcia and his family,” the judge said. “In recognition of that, I feel like I can’t wait on giving my order.”
Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, tearfully spoke to her imprisoned husband while addressing reporters ahead of Friday’s hearing.
“Kilmar, if you can hear me, I miss you so much,” she said. “And I’m doing the best to fight for you and our children.
After the hearing, she said that “we will continue this fight to get my husband back.”
In a Monday statement ICE field office director Robert Cerna said the removal of Garcia “was an error.”
Attorneys for Abrego Garcia have said that he is not a member of “Tren de Aragua, MS-13, or any other criminal street gang” and fled El Salvador to the United States to escape gang violence, adding the Trump administration has not been able to produce “an iota of evidence” proving he is a gang member.
The administration has countered that Abrego Garcia “had the opportunity to give evidence tending to show he was not part of MS-13, which he did not proffer.”
Xinis said she hadn’t seen sufficient evidence he is a member of the gang.
Noem toured the facility last month and delivered remarks in front of a cell holding men detained there, whose heads were shaved and stood shirtless.
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