In a court hearing Tuesday concerning Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Trump Justice Department lawyers refused to provide any updates on what steps the US government is taking to facilitate his return to the United States from a mega-prison in El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia, 29, was one of over 250 men— the majority of whom have never been convicted of a crime— kidnapped and deported to El Salvador last month under the Alien Enemies Act.
The Trump administration is using the case of Abrego Garcia to steamroll over what remains of democratic rights in the United States. Openly defying a Supreme Court ruling last Thursday which required the US government to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia to the US, in a court filing before Tuesday’s hearing, Department of Homeland Security attorney Joseph Mazzara argued the agency did not have the “authority” to “forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.”
In the same filing Mazzara wrote that if Abrego Garcia was able to somehow escape El Salvador’s Centro del Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) and “present at a port of entry” to the US, he would be detained and removed again to a “third country” or, Mazzara wrote, DHS would “terminate his withholding of removal because of his membership in MS-13, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and remove him to El Salvador.”
As a matter of fact, while Trump officials and fascist propagandists constantly claim Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, they have yet to submit any evidence to corroborate this allegation in any of their recent court findings.
Mazzara’s statement that the US government does not have the “authority” to demand Abrego Garcia’s return is a shameless lie. The US government is paying its client, the Bukele dictatorship, some $6 million to detain him and others in CECOT, the largest prison in the Americas. Less than three weeks ago, fascist Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem took a propaganda tour of the facility, escorted by guards the entire time. There is no question that if the Trump administration demanded it, Abrego Garcia could be back on a plane to the US within hours.
In response to the government’s refusal to carry out her or the Supreme Court’s orders, on Tuesday US District Judge Paula Xinis ordered four US officials to provide documentation and answer questions under oath about what steps they had taken to comply with her previous orders.
Xinis set forward an expedited discovery period, warning that there would be “no vacations” and that it would conclude by April 28, at which time Xinis might consider holding one, or more, Trump administration official in contempt.
Xinis said:
To date, what the record shows is that nothing has been done. Nothing. I asked for reports from individuals with direct knowledge and I’ve gotten very little information of any value.
US attorney Drew Ensign, arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, said that the government was providing updates by pointing to the White House meeting held Monday between President Donald Trump and El Salvadoran dictator Nayib Bukele in which the latter said he would not return Abrego Garcia because he was a “terrorist.”
Xinis said the White House meeting was irrelevant to her order. “No press release is going to move the court,” she said.
In last week’s Supreme Court ruling, the court ordered the US government to “facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.” However, in a gift to the Trump administration, the court requested Judge Xinis to clarify her order over the word “effectuate,” adding that she had to show “due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch.”
Xinis amended her order to remove the word “effectuate,” but still, in line with the Supreme Court ruling, ordered daily updates from the Trump administration concerning Abrego Garcia’s status. This includes providing updates on where he is presently located and what steps the administration is taking to return him to the US.
Far from demanding or “facilitating” his return, the Trump administration is doing everything in its power to ensure that Abrego Garcia and others wrongly imprisoned never see the light of day. In an interview on Fox News which aired Tuesday, Trump again reiterated his fascist pledge to send “home-grown” alleged criminals to an El Salvadoran concentration camp.
Asked by Fox News if Trump was considering sending US citizens to overseas concentration camps, Trump replied, “I call home-grown criminals the home-growns, the ones that grew up and something went wrong,” he said, adding, “We are looking into it, and we want to to do it.”
Appearing on the far-right network later on the same day, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan, channeling Hitler, declared:
We’re gonna target every foreign national public safety threat in this country. We won’t rest until every single one of them are eradicated from this country.
The illegal arrests and deportations of thousands of immigrants, including international students, has provoked mass outrage throughout the United States.
Ahead of Tuesday’s hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, hundreds of people, including co-workers and community members, held a protest in support of Abrego Garcia.
Jennifer Vazquez Sura, his wife, spoke outside the courthouse, stating that her husband “is a father, son, brother and proud member of CASA and SMART Union.”
She said:
On March 12, he was abducted and disappeared by the United States government in front of our five-year-old child. Today is 34 days after his disappearance.
I will not stop fighting until I see my husband alive. Kilmar, if you can hear me, stay strong.
Recounting the pain over the last month she said:
Our children are asking when will you come home. Our family is torn apart during this scary time. Our children miss their dad so much.
She concluded:
Enough is enough. This administration has already taken so much from our children, from Kilmar’s mother, brother, sisters and me.