Judge fires back at Trump, Bukele

Stephen Dinan & Kerry Picket | April 16, 2025

(The Washington Times) — A federal judge reinforced her demand Tuesday that the U.S. keep working to bring back an MS-13 gang suspect wrongly deported to El Salvador, dismissing statements by that country’s president against releasing Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Judge Paula Xinis said she would order a two-week sprint to get to the bottom of U.S. efforts to return Mr. Abrego Garcia, including demanding testimony from top Trump officials. She will then decide whether to hold the government in contempt if she thinks there has been intentional stonewalling.

The judge rebuffed the Justice Department’s objections and dismissed the Monday statements of President Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who said Mr. Abrego Garcia will stay in El Salvador’s terrorist prison.

She expressed frustration that her demands aren’t being met with any urgency to return Mr. Abrego Garcia.

“Thus far, the defendants appear to have taken no steps and provided no explanation, legal or otherwise, for such inaction,” she said in a written order Tuesday.

The case has become a striking crusade for Democrats and liberal activists, who have cheered on Judge Xinis, excoriated Mr. Trump and Mr. Bukele, and said the matter cannot end with anything short of reversing Mr. Abrego Garcia’s March 15 deportation.

Protests outside the Maryland courthouse drew a crowd of hundreds. Signs read “Defend Democracy” and “Due Process.”

Jim Stewartson, a liberal activist, adapted a post-World War II poem to compare Mr. Abrego Garcia’s deportation to Nazi Germany and the Salvadoran prison to death camps.

“First, they came for Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Then they came for ‘homegrowns.’ Then they came for you,” he said. “Say his name. Or die regretting you didn’t. This is not a drill.”

Democrats brush aside the allegations of MS-13 ties and Mr. Abrego Garcia’s illegal immigrant status. Instead, they describe him as a “Maryland resident,” “a father” and “a sheet metal apprentice.”

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat, said he would make a pilgrimage to El Salvador on Wednesday to try to see Mr. Abrego Garcia in person at the prison.

“My hope is to visit Kilmar and check on his wellbeing and to hold constructive conversations with government officials around his release,” Mr. Van Hollen said.

The situation grew more intense after Mr. Trump was caught on video Monday saying he wanted to send “homegrowns” to El Salvador and urged Mr. Bukele to build more prisons. That was a reference to the idea floated by the White House to send U.S. citizens abroad for their imprisonment.

The White House said Tuesday that the idea is under consideration, but Mr. Trump will move forward only if it is legal and will use it only in the most severe cases of criminal activity.

The mere possibility has infuriated Democrats.

“Now is the time for my Republican colleagues to step up. You can no longer stay silent in the face of a constitutional crisis,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat.

Trump officials have expressed shock that Democrats would defend a man who was found by an immigration judge to be a member of MS-13, the vicious Salvadoran gang, and whom the Department of Homeland Security has alleged was involved in human “trafficking.”

“What the liberal left and fake news are doing to turn him into a media darling is sickening,” said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

White House border czar Tom Homan urged Democrats to look inward and urge changes to Democratic-led sanctuary jurisdictions rather than celebrate Mr. Abrego Garcia.

“Fix the problem with Boston. Fix the problem that just happened in Washington state,” Mr. Homan said. “Two illegal aliens tortured a woman and left her for dead by drilling on her to get her to give them her money, access to her ATM stuff, but [the Democrats] are going down to El Salvador. It makes zero sense.”

The heated rhetoric aside, Judge Xinis said the issue before her court is to find out what steps the U.S. has taken to ask for Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release from the Salvadoran prison and to “facilitate” his return.

To that end, she ordered legal discovery, a chance for Mr. Abrego Garcia’s family to depose top government officials who have filed affidavits in the case.

“If not this court, who?” said Judge Xinis, demanding speed from all sides. “Let’s get to the bottom of it.”

She also told the government’s attorney that there would be no tolerance for “gamesmanship or grandstanding.”

She stopped short of saying she could order the White House to demand his release from El Salvador. She said she wants to gather evidence about what has been done and then hear arguments over what else she might be able to order.

Mr. Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant to the U.S., was deported to El Salvador on March 15. Since then, he has been held at that country’s Terrorism Confinement Center.

He was part of three planeloads of migrants the U.S. sent out that day. Some, the U.S. said, were Salvadoran citizens and members of MS-13, whom El Salvador said it wanted back for intelligence purposes.

Others were Venezuelans whom the Trump administration said were part of Tren de Aragua, another notorious gang with roots in Venezuela but which infiltrated the U.S. during the Biden years.

The U.S. government has now declared both gangs to be terrorist organizations, and Mr. Trump has invoked the Alien Enemies Act to speed their deportations.

An immigration judge first ordered Mr. Abrego Garcia deported in 2019 but added an addendum to his order — what’s known as “withholding of removal” — saying that the one place he couldn’t be sent was El Salvador because Mr. Abrego Garcia faced the chance of persecution or torture in his home country.

Another immigration judge established that he was a member of MS-13 based on a confidential source report to police in Prince George’s County, Maryland. That source identified Mr. Abrego Garcia based on his gang nickname and rank.

He had been living in Maryland with his wife and son, required to periodically check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, when he was arrested and put on one of the March 15 planes despite the bar on being sent back to El Salvador.

Homeland Security and White House officials described that deportation as a “mistake” but have balked at bringing him back now that he is off U.S. soil.

Mr. Bukele, meeting with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office on Monday, said Mr. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen, is now in his government’s custody. He flatly rejected releasing and returning him.

“How can I return him to the United States, like I smuggle him to the United States?” Mr. Bukele said. “Of course, I’m not going to do it.”

Judge Xinis wasn’t convinced. In her written order Tuesday, she cast doubt on the U.S. claim that El Salvador has control of its citizen, citing an Associated Press article that said America is paying El Salvador $6 million to hold hundreds of people.

The Trump administration, in a court declaration Tuesday, said that if El Salvador were to release Mr. Abrego Garcia and he was to appear at a U.S. port of entry, the government would take him into custody and attempt to deport him back to El Salvador or send him to a third country.

The administration argues that the 2019 bar on his deportation to El Salvador is no longer operative because there is no withholding of removal in terrorism cases.