By Bill Barrow | Associated press
The Trump administration confirmed to a federal judge on Saturday that a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported last month is still confined in a notorious prison in 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 to Kilmar Abrego García 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 filling as a “senior office official” in the affairs of the Western Hemistura 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, 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” by Abrego García and “what steps, if anyone, the defendants have tasks (and) will take, and when, to facilitate” their return.
“I am understanding based on official reports of our Embassy in San Salvador that Abrego García is currently at the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador,” Kozak’s statement 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 requested the hearing. “I am not scaring state secrets. All I know is that not here. The government was prohibited from sending it to El Salvador, and now I am asking a very simple question: where is he hears?”
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 García has lived in the United States for approximately 14 years, during which he worked under construction, 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 American immigration judge protected him from deportation to El Salvador Becoaus who probably faced the persecution there for local gangs that terrified his family.
The Trump administration deported him there last month anyway, then described the error as “an administrative error”, but insisted that he was in the MS-13.
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