Judge Accuses Government of ‘Willful and Bad Faith’ Stonewalling in Deportation Case
A federal judge in Maryland blasted the Trump administration on Tuesday for flouting her instructions to answer questions about what steps it had taken, and planned to take, in seeking the release of a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador last month.
The sharp rebuke by the judge, Paula Xinis, contained in an eight-page order, suggested she had lost her patience with the Justice Department’s pattern of stonewalling her in the case involving the deported man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.
In her order, Judge Xinis accused the department of “a willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.” She also dismissed as “specious” its attempts to evade providing information about how Mr. Abrego Garcia ended up in a Salvadoran prison by claiming that it amounted to privileged state secrets.
“For weeks, defendants have sought refuge behind vague and unsubstantiated assertions of privilege, using them as a shield to obstruct discovery and evade compliance with this court’s orders,” Judge Xinis wrote, giving vent to her frustrations. “Defendants have known, at least since last week, that this court requires specific legal and factual showings to support any claim of privilege. Yet they have continued to rely on boilerplate assertions. That ends now.”
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Two federal courts extend deportation block under Alien Enemies Act
While hearing arguments Tuesday, Hellerstein accused the administration of drastic and un-American deportation methods.
“This is not the Inquisition, it’s not medieval times,” he said. “This is the United States of America.”
In Colorado, U.S. District Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney granted the American Civil Liberties Union’s request to temporarily block removals from her district and required that the government provide a 21-day notice to individuals deemed removable under the act. In her opinion, Sweeney said that the notice “must be written in a language the individual understands” and inform the person of their right to judicial review and to consult their lawyer about the government’s plan to force them from the country.
The Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to speed deportations has been at the heart of a weeks-long legal fight.
The Supreme Court blocked the administration early Saturday morning from deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members. In its filings in multiple courts Friday, the ACLU had noted that Venezuelan men at a detention center in North Texas received notices in English saying they had been “determined to be an Alien Enemy” and would be deported….
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Her husband was mistakenly deported. Now she’s caught in a political frenzy.
The couple’s home was usually filled by the sounds of a burgeoning family, including pans clattering while her husband cooked, the three kids tumbling through the day, the TV humming in the background. Now, she is on her own with the children — one nonverbal and another prone to seizures — and their new home is uncomfortably silent.
Vasquez Sura is also overwhelmed by the glaring spotlight of the legal battle over her husband’s case, which has become a lightning rod for the president’s broader effort to deport millions who have entered the United States illegally — regardless of whether, like Abrego Garcia, they later obtained protections barring deportation. She nevertheless has become her husband’s fiercest advocate…..
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How the deportation of a Salvadoran man has become a hinge point in US history
The saga of Kilmar Abrego Garcia has become about more than one undocumented migrant’s plight in a Salvadoran jail and is now one of those rare cases that resonate in history and dictate the character of America itself.
The deported Maryland resident’s fate is turning into a defining test of Donald Trump’s mass expulsion program and of Democrats’ ability to frame an opposing argument on the politically tricky issue of immigration, which normally favors the president and his party.
The Abrego Garcia case and related matters could be the catalyst of a constitutional collision between an administration that brooks no restraints on its power and the authority of the judiciary to check an unfettered president.
The ultimate outcome of this critical legal battle could hinge on whether the conservative Supreme Court majority is willing to risk a showdown with the president, which it has seemed keen to avoid.
The administration admitted in court that Abrego Garcia was deported because of an administrative error, ignoring a judge’s ruling that he couldn’t be sent back to his native El Salvador, where his life could be in danger. But officials are refusing to return Abrego Garcia to the US, arguing they lack power to force El Salvador to do so.
Officials are also choosing to interpret the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Trump administration must “facilitate” his return as a unanimous endorsement of the administration’s position. They argue that because Abrego Garcia is in the custody of a foreign government, they have no power to return him.
The White House insists Abrego Garcia is a terrorist; a member of the notorious MS-13 gang, who will never be brought back to the US. But it has failed to produce definitive evidence to prove these claims. It has instead been maligning Abrego Garcia’s character by highlighting a domestic dispute with his US-born wife and a claim he was involved in human trafficking. But Abrego Garcia was not prosecuted in either case, and his wife has dismissed the allegations against him….
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Trump ordered to give some Venezuelans 21 days’ notice before deportations
A federal judge in Colorado ordered the Trump administration on Tuesday to provide Venezuelan migrants detained there 21 days’ notice before deporting them under the Alien Enemies Act.
The order only applies to migrants housed within the state, but it nonetheless deals a blow to the administration, which in some cases elsewhere was providing migrants 24 hours’ or less notice before seeking to remove them under a law it has used to transport migrants to a prison in El Salvador.
U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney also ordered the Trump administration to provide the notice “in a language the individual understands.”
Her ruling comes after lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is representing a number of Venezuelan migrants the Trump administration has sought to deport, asked the Supreme Court to leapfrog lower courts in taking up that case.
In that same filing, they pushed for 30 days’ notice for migrants to challenge the order, including notifying any personal attorney as well as the ACLU. They also said the government should be required to disclose migrants could be sent to a third country, noting the Trump administration has argued it cannot seek the return of any person once they are imprisoned in El Salvador….
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