The Trump administration confirmed to a federal judge on Saturday that a Maryland man who wasDeported by mistakeLast month he remains confined in aNotorious prisonIn El Salvador.
But the government’s presentation did not address the judge’s demands that the administration details what steps he was taking to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States. The government only said that Abrego García, 29, is under the authority of the Government of El Salvador.
Abrego García’s location was confirmed to the Court by Michael G. Kozak, who identified himself in the presentation as a “senior office official” in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere’s office of the State Department.
The presentation occurs a day after a lawyer from the United States government had problems at a hearing to provide the United States district judge, Paula Xinis, any information about the whereabouts of Abrego García. The United States Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Trump administration must bring it back.
Xinis issued an order on Friday that demanded that the administration reveal the “current physical location and the state of custody” of Abrego García and “what steps, if anyone, the defendants have taken (and) will take and when, to facilitate” their return.
“I understand that I understand the presentation of official reports of our Embassy in San Salvador that Abrego García is currently at the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador,” Kozak said. “He is alive and sure in that installation. He is detained in accordance with the sovereign domestic authority of El Salvador.”
Kozak’s statement did not address the judge’s latest requirements.
Xinis exasperated on Friday with the lack of government information.
“Where is he and under whose authority?” The judge asked during the hearing. “I am not asking for state secrets. All I know is that he is not here. The government was forbidden to send it to El Salvador, and now I am asking a very simple question: where is he?”
The judge repeatedly asked a government lawyer about what has been done to return Abrego García, asking precisely: “Have you done something?”
Drew Ensign, an attached attached attorney general, told Xinis that he had no personal knowledge about any action or plans to return to Abrego García. But he told the judge that the government was “actively considering what could be done” and said that the case of Abrego García involved three cabinet agencies and significant coordination.
Before the audience ended, Xinis ordered the US to provide daily status updates on the plans to return to Abrego García.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond on Saturday night at a request for comments from Associated Press.
Abrego Garcíahas lived in the United StatesFor approximately 14 years, during which he worked in construction, he married and was raising three children with disabilities, according to judicial records.
If he is returned, he will face the accusations that caused his expulsion: an accusation of 2019 of the Local Police in Maryland that he was a member of the MS-13 gang.
Abrego García denied the accusation and was never accused of a crime, said his lawyers. Subsequently, an immigration judge from the United States protected him from deportation to El Salvador because he probably faced the persecution there for local gangs that terrified his family.
The Trump administration deported him there last month anyway, laterdescribing the erroras “an administrative error” but insisting that I was in MS-13.
This story was originally presented in Fortune.com
