Trump Administration Says It Is Not Required to Bring Wrongly Deported Man Back to US

Lawyers for the government have been providing daily updates on the case.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, in an undated file photo. Abrego Garcia Family/Handout via Reuters

President Donald Trump’s administration can only take steps to remove “domestic obstacles” for the potential return of a man it erroneously deported, not force the El Salvadoran government to release him, according to a new court filing.

The government’s position is that a federal court order requiring it to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia means “[removing] any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede” Garcia’s ability to return to the United States, lawyers for the administration said in the April 13 filing.

U.S. officials deported Garcia to his home country of El Salvador in March. Garcia was ordered deported in 2019 based on an immigration court’s finding that he is a member of the MS-13 gang, but he was granted what’s called withholding of removal, a protection that prevented his return to El Salvador, because a judge agreed that he could face danger there.

U.S. officials said in previous filings that Garcia was deported to El Salvador in error.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele told reporters at the White House on April 14 that he will not return Garcia to the United States.

“You’re suggesting I smuggle a terrorist into the United States,” Bukele said during the Oval Office meeting with President Trump. “I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said during the meeting that it’s “up to El Salvador if they want to return him.”

“That’s not up to us,” Bondi said.

A federal judge on April 4 ordered the U.S. government to “facilitate and effectuate” the return of Garcia to the United States by the end of April 7. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked the order temporarily.

The justices on April 10 said that the government must facilitate the return of the El Salvadoran native, but that the lower court judge must also clarify what she meant by the term effectuate “with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

That judge, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, in an updated order, removed the word effectuate but told the government to “take all available steps to facilitate the return of Garcia to the United States as soon as possible.”

Soon after, she ordered the government to provide her with daily updates on the case.

In the first update, a State Department official said Garcia is alive and secure in the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador. In the second update, a separate filing lodged on April 13, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said that there were “no updates for the Court beyond what was provided yesterday.”

Lawyers for Garcia have accused officials of being recalcitrant and recently urged the judge to order the government to take “all available steps to release and return Garcia to Maryland.”

That includes requesting the release of Garcia from the prison in El Salvador, providing air transportation for Garcia, and dispatching personnel to accompany him upon his release to make sure that he can safely reach an aircraft that will fly him back to the United States, the lawyers said.

Government lawyers said in response, in one of the April 13 filings, that the request should be denied.

Reading that “facilitate” means removing domestic obstacles, but nothing else, “follows directly from the Supreme Court’s order,” they said, pointing to how the court emphasized any order must give due regard to Executive Branch authorities over foreign affairs.

“On the flipside, reading ‘facilitate’ as requiring something more than domestic measures would not only flout the Supreme Court’s order, but also violate the separation of powers,” the lawyers said. “The federal courts have no authority to direct the Executive Branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way, or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner. That is the ‘exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations.’”

The lawyers also said that the court should not order it to produce documents outlining the U.S.–El Salvador pact for sending illegal immigrants to El Salvador and having them imprisoned there.

“It would be inappropriate for this Court to hastily order production of these sensitive documents,” the filing stated.

A demand for testimony from U.S. officials about the case is inappropriate because, if given, that “could interfere with ongoing diplomatic discussions,” the lawyers wrote.