A U.S. federal judge had no right to order the Trump administration to broker the return of a Maryland man who was wrongly deported from the country to a notorious prison in El Salvador, government lawyers said in asking an appeals court to stay the ruling.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the administration to “facilitate and effect” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States by Monday evening.
However, lawyers for the US Department of Justice have asked the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to immediately stay the judge's decision.
“A judicial order that requires the executive branch to interact with a foreign state in a particular way, let alone compel a foreign sovereign to perform certain actions, is constitutionally impermissible,” they said.
The appeals court asked Abrego Garcia's lawyers to respond to the government's filing by Sunday afternoon.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, a Salvadoran citizen, was detained in Maryland and deported last month despite a 2019 immigration judge's ruling that protected him from being deported to El Salvador, where he would likely be targeted by local criminal groups.
The deportation error, called an “administrative error” by the White House, sparked public outrage and concern about the removal of non-citizens who had permission to remain in the United States.
Dozens of supporters gathered outside the federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the hearing on Friday.
Applause erupted in the courtroom as Judge Xinis ruled in favor of Abrego Garcia, whose wife, a U.S. citizen, was present at the hearing.
Judge Xinis, appointed by former President Barack Obama, said there was no legal basis for detaining Abrego Garcia and no legal justification for deporting him to El Salvador, where he could end up in a prison known for human rights abuses, observers say.
Abrego Garcia's lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said authorities had done nothing to bring his client back, even after admitting their mistakes.
“A lot of tweets. A lot of press conferences from the White House. But no real action taken by the Salvadoran government to fix this,” he told the judge on Friday.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
