abrego

May 16 (UPI) — A federal judge will hear arguments Friday from the Trump administration to determine if the government has the legal privilege to not share details about its actions taken toward the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Abrego Garcia was deported in March to the supermax Terrorism Confinement Center prison, or CECOT, in El Salvador because he was an accused member of the MS-13 gang.

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration in April to return Abrego Garcia, who it said was illegally removed from the United States.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers continue to try to bring him back but allege the federal government has purposefully delayed his return. The Trump administration has since invoked “state secrets privilege,” which allows an executive department to withhold information or evidence in a court case because the information or evidence could jeopardize national security.

The administration’s use of the privilege has presiding U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis to ask lawyers from both sides of the case to file added legal papers about the administration’s use of the privilege.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys filed papers Monday that purport the government has yet to produce any evidence that it has done anything to facilitate the man’s release from imprisonment in El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia was born in El Salvador but entered the U.S. illegally in 2011 and had been living in Maryland. He was granted a withholding of removal legal status in 2019 that protected him from deportation due to the risk he would face upon a return to El Salvador from local gangs.

He was one of hundreds of migrants sent by the Trump administration in March to CECOT, and despite the government’s acknowledgement that he was incorrectly deported, he has been purported to be a member of the gang MS-13 by immigration officials.

Abrego Garcia’s legal team has argued that he was not only never part of MS-13, but was never charged or convicted of any crimes in the United States.

WASHINGTON, May 8 (UPI) — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the Trump administration’s deportations Thursday as Democratic senators accused the president of illegally sending U.S. citizens and legal residents to other countries.

The confrontation over deportations took center stage as Noem testified before the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee about the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed $175 billion budget.

In a tense back-and-forth with Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., Noem said that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador in mid-March would “never return.”

Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadoran native, “should have never been in the U.S,” Noem said, calling him a “wife beater.”

Murphy accused Noem and the Trump administration of breaking the law and disregarding the Supreme Court‘s unanimous ruling ordering his return.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., also pressed Noem on whether the administration was facilitating Abrego Garcia’s return.

Though admitting the administration was “complying with all orders,” Noem would not answer yes or no on whether the government was working with El Salvador to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

Van Hollen called her response political rhetoric.

Noem insisted officials have targeted “the worst of the worst” criminals. Democrats said the administration has broken the law with its deportation of a 4-year-old with cancer; students on visas; and the 32 Venezuelans accused of being Tren de Aragua gang members.

Trump has invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act, a law permitting the removal of people from countries that are “enemies” of the United States. He argued that members of the Tren de Aragua gang constituted an enemy state.

The American Civil Liberties Union has battled in federal court using the Alien Enemies Act in this way.

Some Democratic lawmakers also expressed concern over the method and speed of reducing illegal border crossings and ramping up removals.

“You are routinely violating the rights of immigrants, who may not be citizens, but whether you like it or not, they have constitutional and statutory rights when they reside in the United States,” Murphy said to Noem.

“Your agency acts as if laws don’t matter, as if the election gave you some mandate to violate the Constitution and the laws passed by this Congress.”

Meanwhile, Noem credited the president’s focus on increased enforcement for the drop in illegal border crossings.

Customs and Border Protection agents encountered around 11,000 people attempting to illegally cross the southwest border in March, according to most recent data. That’s down from 189,000 in March 2024.

Republican lawmakers acknowledged their approval of DHS border enforcement.

DHS requested $175 billion to construct more miles of border wall, add Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and CBP agents, enhance cybersecurity, train local law enforcement and upgrade border technology such as mail package scanners.

Noem told UPI and Medill News Service after the hearing that she expected Congress to approve the requested budget.

“It’s one of the larger agencies with one of the smallest budgets,” Noem said. “We recognize that we’ve now let people into this country that are dangerous, and we not only need to return them back to their homes, but we also have to have the technology to compete in this day and age when so many other countries and bad actors have invested in taking us down.”

Noem is expected to face more questioning during another hearing next Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is invoking the “state secrets privilege ” in an apparent attempt to avoid answering a judge’s questions about its mistaken deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis disclosed the government’s position in a two-page order on Wednesday. She set a Monday deadline for attorneys to file briefs on the issue and how it could affect Abrego Garcia’s case. Xinis also scheduled a May 16 hearing in Greenbelt, Md., to address the matter.

The Republican administration previously invoked the same legal authority to cut off a judge’s inquiry into whether it defied an order to turn around planes deporting Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia, 29, has been imprisoned in his native El Salvador for nearly two months. His mistaken deportation has become a flash point for President Trump’s immigration policies and his increasing friction with the U.S. courts.

Trump has said he could call El Salvador’s president and have Abrego Garcia, who was living in Maryland, returned to the United States. Instead, Trump has doubled down on his claims that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang.

Police in Maryland had identified Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 gang member in 2019 based off his tattoos, Chicago Bulls hoodie and the word of a criminal informant. But Abrego Garcia was never charged. His lawyers say the informant claimed Abrego Garcia was in an MS-13 chapter in New York, where Abrego Garcia has never lived.

The administration has balked at telling Xinis what, if anything, it has done to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. The judge ruled that his lawyers can question several Trump administration officials under oath about the government’s response to her orders.

In a court filing Wednesday, his lawyers said they already have conducted depositions of three officials and are “still in the dark” about the government’s efforts to free Abrego Garcia. They are asking for permission to depose more officials, possibly including one from the White House.

April 30 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said he could bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States, but didn’t say he would.

In an interview with ABC News Tuesday, Trump was asked by interviewer Terry Moran about how the Supreme Court upheld an order that Abrego Garcia be returned to the United States, and he said a lawyer told him “it was a mistake” that he was here and then alleged that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, which his representation has repeatedly denied.

Moran then told Trump how he could just make a call to get Abrego Garcia back stateside, and the president replied, “I could.”

Trump was again told that he could call El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and use the power of the presidency to get Abrego Garcia back, to which Trump responded “And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that,” and “But he’s not.”

Trump alleged that Abrego Garcia “tough cookie, been in lots of skirmishes, beat the hell out of his wife, and the wife was petrified to even talk about him, okay? This is not an innocent, wonderful gentleman from Maryland.”

Abrego Garcia has lived in the United States legally with a green card and had not been charged with a crime nor appeared before a judge before he was deported.

Trump then continued to argue that Abrego Garcia was a gang member, but at that point Moran tried to change the subject. The President then started to discuss Abrego Garcia’s tattoos. Trump has publicly shown of a photo of Abrego Garcia’s hands, and in the photo there are markings which have been interpreted to confirm membership in MS-13.

Moran mentioned that it has been widely argued that he photo Trump showed had been altered, but Trump insisted the tattoos were real and the topic was “fake news.”

Moran then pointed out photos taken of Abrego Garcia in El Salvador don’t show the tattoos that appeared in the photo Trump has shown, but Trump insisted the photo accurately showed the tattoos to exist.

Trump finally said to Moran, “Why don’t you just say, ‘Yes, he does,’ and, you know, go on to something else,” and Moran immediately changed the topic.