Judge Halts Order Demanding Details on Efforts to Return Abrego Garcia to US

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered the government to address discovery requests.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran illegal immigrant who was living in Maryland and was deported to El Salvador, in a handout image on April 9, 2025. Abrego Garcia's Family/File Photo/Handout via Reuters

The federal judge overseeing the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant deported to his home country despite a court order, has paused her order demanding details on the U.S. government’s efforts to facilitate his return to the United States.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis on April 23 paused her order for one week. She did not detail the rationale behind the pause but wrote that it was entered “with the agreement of the parties.”

Lawyers for Abrego Garcia, an immigrant from El Salvador, and the government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Xinis previously ordered the government to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States. When the government declined to provide details, she ordered officials to file daily updates with the court on its efforts.

The judge had also granted the plaintiff’s request for expedited discovery on the matter, including the terms of the agreement the United States reached with the Salvadoran government to house immigrants deported from America.

Xinis on Tuesday said that the U.S. government needed to address outstanding discovery requests, finding that the Trump administration has shown a “willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.”

“For weeks, Defendants have sought refuge behind vague and unsubstantiated assertions of privilege, using them as a shield to obstruct discovery and evade compliance with this Court’s orders,” she wrote in an order.

The government then filed a motion to stay that ruling. It was filed under seal, meaning it is not available to the public.

Lawyers for Abrego Garcia filed a sealed response to the motion.

Xinis referenced both sealed filings while entering the pause.

Garcia, who illegally entered the United States in 2011, was arrested in 2019. An immigration judge concluded that evidence showed he was a member of the MS-13 gang. A different immigration judge ordered Garcia deported but also issued a withholding of removal, which prevented the U.S. government from deporting him to his home country.

Garcia continued living in the United States until he was taken into custody by immigration agents on March 12. He was soon deported to El Salvador.

U.S. officials have said that the deportation there was a mistake because the withholding order was not listed on the flight manifest. They have more recently said the deportation was allowed because MS-13 was designated a terrorist group by President Donald Trump. Lawyers for Abrego Garcia say he should not have been deported to El Salvador and that he should be brought back to the United States to be with his wife, a U.S. citizen, and children.

In their last publicly available status report, dated April 21, U.S. officials said that the Salvadoran government told them that day that Abrego Garcia is being held at the Centro Industrial penitentiary facility in Santa Ana and is “in good conditions and in an excellent state of health.”