The federal judge, who oversees the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, took on the Ministry of Justice’s lawyers in relation to their passivity on Tuesday and ordered government officials to testify under oath to resolve Abrego Garcia’s wrongful detention.
To say “the Supreme Court has spoken,” ordered American district judge Paula Xinis accelerating discovery – where officials are issued under oath – to “apply the law to the facts.”
The judge told attorneys to the Ministry of Justice that she ordered accelerated discovery “specifically to determine if you are fighting against the court decision, my court decisions, whether you intend to comply with court decisions.”
“You put forward your jurisdictional arguments, you made your location arguments,” Judge Xinis told DOJ lawyers. “You put forward your arguments about the benefits. You lost. This is now about the extent of the medium.”
In his subsequent order, which gives acceleration of discovery, Judge Xinis said the Trump administration remains obliged to “take steps available to them against helping, helping or making easier Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.”
“The defendant seems to have done something to help in ABEGO Garcia’s release from custody and return to the United States,” wrote Xinis, saying that the discovery is needed in the light of the Trump administration’s refusal to reveal “what it can” or present justification to what they cannot pass.
Judge Xinis said ABEGO GARCIA is “undisclosed” entitled to the proper process that the government has denied him and of being free of the risk “of serious injury”, which is the result of his detention in the notorious Salvadoran prison.
Underated photo provided by the US District Court of District of Maryland, a man identified by Jennifer Vasquez Sura as her husband, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, is led by the power of guards through terrorism’s inclusion center in Tecoluca, El Salvador.
Us District Court for District of Maryland via AP
The referee requires DOJ -Attorneys to provide requests from ABEGO Garcia’s attorneys before April 21st. She also ordered Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to give messages of deposits to the four government officials who submitted status updates to court.
According to Xinis, the deposits must be completed by April 23 with accelerating discovery expected to be completed by April 28.
Abrego Garcia, as the Trump administration claims is a member of the criminal gang MS-13, joins his second month in an El Salvador-Mega prison after being deported there on March 15, despite being issued a 2019 judgment that prevents his deportation to his homeland because of fear of persecution.
In response to Judge Xinis’ order for acceleration of discovery, DOJ -Attorney Drew Ensign said he does not think the discovery is appropriate because “this is a legal dispute.”
With regard to the different interpretations of what it means to the government that “ease” Abrego Garcia’s release, Ensign Judge Xinis asked to clarify, for discovery what “light” means – as Xinis said she will issue an order “that extends” her view of the definition of “easy.”
“Until this case is over and a final order is issued, we will operate within the parameters of this decision, and it is in accordance with the Supreme Court, and it is in accordance with the general significance of the term,” said Judge Xinis. “And it is also in line with the general practice of the immigration law when a person is unlawfully removed from the United States.”
Jennifer Vasquez Sura, wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, speaks during a press conference on the day of a hearing in the case related to Kilmar Abrego Garcia outside the US District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, April 15, 2025.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
Attorneys for AbreGo Garcia said they agree with the court’s plan.
Fifteen minutes before the hearing, the Trump administration said in their daily status report to court that it is “prepared to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s presence in the United States in accordance with these processes if he presents at an entrance port.”
“I have been allowed to represent DHS is prepared to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s presence in the United States in accordance with these processes if he presents in an entrance port,” said Joseph Mazarra, the acting General Attorney for DHS.
However, Mazarra said, when Abrego Garcia “is held in the sovereign, domestic custody” by El Salvador, DHS does not have the authority to extract him “from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation.”
If AbreGo Garcia present in an entrance port, he would be subject to the detention of DHS because of his alleged membership of the criminal gang MS-13, Mazarra said.
“In this case, DHS would take him into custody in the United States and either remove him to a third country or end his detention of removal because of his membership in MS-13, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and remove him to El Salvador,” Mazarra said.
The development came a day after a highly expected oval office meeting, where the president of El Salvador said he would not return Abrego Garcia to the United States.
DH’s Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin told ABC News’ Jay O’Brien on Tuesday afternoon that Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador was the result of a “spiritual error.”
“He should have been sent to a detention center in Mexico, Nicaragua, Egypt,” McLaughlin said.
Trump administration officials say that Abrego Garcia, who escaped political violence in El Salvador 2011, is a member of the criminal gang MS-13, but so far they have provided little evidence of this claim in court.
Abrego Garcia, who has lived in Maryland with his US citizen’s wife and 5-year-old child, is held in El Salvador’s infamous Cecot prison with hundreds of other alleged migrant gang members, under a scheme where the Trump administration pays El Salvador $ 6 million to house migrants who were deported from the United States as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said at an oval office meeting Monday with President Trump and visitor El Salvador president that Abrego Garcia’s return is “Up to El Salvador.”
“If El Salvador … would return him, we would ease it,” she said.
On the question of journalists about AbreGo Garcia, President Bukele replied: “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
In a proposal that was filed on Tuesday at the forefront of the hearing, lawyers for AbreGo Garcia claimed that the Trump administration has taken no steps to comply with the orders to facilitate his release.
Underated photo provided by Murray Osorio PLLC shows Kilmar AbreGo Garcia.
Murray Osorio PLLC via AP
“There is no evidence that someone has requested the release of AbreGo Garcia,” they wrote in the filing.
The lawyers also questioned the government’s interpretation of the word “light”, which the administration has claimed in judicial archives, is limited to removing any domestic obstacles that would prevent Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers who interpreted the term in the way claimed would make the “null” Supreme Court’s order that the government facilitates his release.
“To make any meaning to the Supreme Court’s order, the government should at least be obliged to request the release of Abrego Garcia. So far, the government has not done so,” they wrote in their movement.
After Judge Xinis ordered the government to “lighten and implement” Abrego Garcia’s return, the Supreme Court last week gave up unanimously that Judge Xinis “correctly demands that the government ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case was handled as it would have been if he had not been wrongly sent to El Salvador.
“However, the intended extent of the term ‘effective’ in the order of the court is unclear and can exceed the authority of the law. take any action that would violate that separation.
Judge Xinis subsequently changed his decision to remove the word “effectually”, thereby ease the order. “
In an interview on Monday night with ABC News’ Linsey Davis, a lawyer for AbreGo Garcia said he hopes Tuesday’s hearing “lit a fire under the government to comply with the Supreme Court’s order” to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release.
“What we ask [of Trump] is exactly what the Supreme Court told him, “Attorney Benjamin Osorio said.” I personally have worked with DHS before to facilitate the return of several other clients who were deported and then won their cases on the Court of Justice or at the Supreme Court and ice facilitated their return. “
“So we don’t ask anyone to do anything illegal,” Osorio said. “We ask them to follow the law.”
“It feels a bit like Spider-Man-Meme, where everyone points to everyone else,” Osorio said of Bukele’s claim that he has no power to return to Garcia. “But at the same time, I mean we rent space from Salvadorans. We pay them to house these individuals so we could stop the payment and let them be returned to us.”
When asked if he is convinced that Abrego Garcia will be returned, Osorio said he was worried but hopeful.
“I’m worried about the rule of law, I’m worried about our constitution, I worry about proper process,” he said. “So at this point, I’m optimistic to see what happens in the federal hearing.”
