The appeals court gave Abrego Garcia’s lawyers until Sunday afternoon to respond to the government’s filing.
The Department of Justice told an appeals court on April 5 that a federal judge in Maryland does not have the authority to order the Trump administration to return a man who was deported to a prison in El Salvador.
Homeland Security investigators have said the man is a leader of the notorious MS-13 transnational gang, recently designated a terrorist organization.
During a hearing on April 4 regarding the deportation of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia of Maryland, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the federal government to “facilitate and effectuate the return of … Garcia to the United States no later than 11:59 p.m. on Monday, April 7, 2025.”
A day later, Justice Department attorneys asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to pause Xinis’s ruling.
“It is an injunction to force a foreign sovereign to send back a foreign terrorist within three days’ time. That is no way to run a government. And it has no basis in American law,” they wrote.
The appeals court gave Abrego-Garcia’s lawyers until Sunday afternoon to respond to the government’s filing.
Authorities arrested Abrego-Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national, in Maryland last month and deported him to El Salvador despite a 2019 ruling from an immigration judge that shielded him from deportation.
The White House described the deportation of Abrego-Garcia as an “administrative error.”
On Friday, Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni said Abrego-Garcia should not have been deported and couldn’t tell Xinis under what authority the man was arrested in Maryland.
Within 24 hours, Reuveni had been placed on leave by the Justice Department, an agency spokesperson confirmed, with his name not appearing on Saturday’s filing at the appeals court.
“At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”
On Friday, Xinis ruled that there was no legal justification to detain Abrego-Garcia and no legal basis for his deportation to El Salvador.
Homeland Security Investigations has deemed Abrego-Garcia an MS-13 leader and the White House reiterated that following Friday’s hearing. His attorneys argue there is no evidence of his ties to the gang.
By Jacob Burg
