Miami’s ‘Little Venezuela’ fears Trump's moves against migration
[April 07, 2025]
GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — The U.S. government's decision to
arrest a Maryland man and send him to a notorious prison in El Salvador
appears to be “wholly lawless,” a federal judge wrote Sunday in a legal
opinion explaining why she had ordered the Trump administration to bring
him back to the United States.
There is little to no evidence to support a “vague, uncorroborated”
allegation that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was once in the MS-13 street gang,
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis wrote. And in any case, she said, an
immigration judge had expressly barred the U.S. in 2019 from deporting
Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, where he faced likely persecution by local
gangs.
“As defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him,
no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El
Salvador — let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons
in the Western Hemisphere,” Xinis wrote.
She said it was “eye-popping" that the government had argued that it
could not be forced to bring Abrego Garcia back because he is no longer
in U.S. custody.
“They do indeed cling to the stunning proposition that they can forcibly
remove any person — migrant and U.S. citizen alike —to prisons outside
the United States, and then baldly assert they have no way to effectuate
return because they are no longer the ‘custodian,’ and the Court thus
lacks jurisdiction,” Xinis wrote. “As a practical matter, the facts say
otherwise.”
The Justice Department has asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
to pause Xinis’ ruling.
Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national who has never been
charged or convicted of any crime, was detained by immigration agents
and deported last month.
Abrego Garcia had a permit from DHS to legally work in the U.S. and was
a sheet metal apprentice pursuing a journeyman license, his attorney
said. His wife is a U.S. citizen.
The White House has described Abrego Garcia's deportation as an
“administrative error” but has also cast him an MS-13 gang member.
Attorneys for Abrego Garcia said there is no evidence he was in MS-13.
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Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia of Maryland,
who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, speaks during a news
conference at CASA's Multicultural Center in Hyattsville, Md., April
4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, file)
In her order Sunday, Xinis referenced earlier comments from
now-suspended Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni in which
Reuveni said: “We concede he should not have been removed to El
Salvador” and that he responded “I don’t know” when asked why Abrego
Garcia was being held.
The Justice Department placed Reuveni on leave after he made the
comments.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, in an interview on “Fox News Sunday,”
likened Reuveni's comments to “a defense attorney walking in,
conceding something in a criminal matter.”
“That would never happen in this country,” she said. "So he’s on
administrative leave now and we’ll see what happens.”
Stacey Young, a former Justice Department lawyer and founder of
Justice Connection, a network of department alumni that works to
support employees, released a statement that defended Reuveni and
said he has “zealously represented the United States in some of the
most high-stakes and controversial immigration cases under the
Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.”
“Justice Department attorneys are being put in an impossible
position: Obey the president, or uphold their ethical duty to the
court and the Constitution," Young said. “We should all be grateful
to DOJ lawyers who choose principle over politics and the rule of
law over partisan loyalty.”
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