The U.S. Department of Justice is telling a federal judge it cannot comply with her orders—even after the U.S. Supreme Court directed the DOJ to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a legal U.S. resident wrongly deported by President Donald Trump’s ICE to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador built to hold accused terrorists.
In a heated hearing, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Department of Justice to not “slow walk” her orders designed to attain Abrego Garcia’s release and return to the United States.
“We’re not going to slow-walk this,” Judge Xinis said, Politico’s Kyle Cheney reported, “we’re not relitigating what the Supreme Court has already put to bed.”
The DOJ’s lawyer replied, “We read the Supreme Court’s order differently.”
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Earlier on Friday, after attempting to cancel a scheduled hearing, DOJ had allowed a 9:30 AM deadline to pass “with no information from the Justice Department about Abrego Garcia’s location or status, as demanded by the judge,” Cheney also reported.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis granted the government an extension to 11:30 AM, which also passed without a DOJ response.
Just past noon, Cheney reported: “DOJ says it won’t comply with Judge Xinis’ order because the deadline she set is ‘impracticable.'”
Lawyers for the Department of Justice told Judge Xinis via a court filing that “Foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines, in part because it involves sensitive country-specific considerations wholly inappropriate for judicial review.”
DOJ continued to defy the court, writing: “In light of the insufficient amount of time afforded to review the Supreme Court’s order following the dissolution of the adm. stay in this case, Defendants are not in a position where they ‘can’ share any information requested by the Court,” and added, “That is the reality.”
In court, Judge Xinis asked DOJ attorneys where Abrego Garcia is.
“Your honor, I do not have that information,” reported CBS News Justice Correspondent Scott MacFarlane and Jake Rosen.
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“From now until compliance, [I am] going to require daily statuses, daily updates,” Judge Xinis said, according to ABC News’ Katherine Faulders. “We’re going to make a record of what if anything the government is doing or not doing.”
Former federal organized crime prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega called the Department of Justice’s tone and substance “beyond contemptuous.”
WUSA9’s investigative reporter Jordan Fischer noted: “You see plenty of self-righteousness in filings from DOJ all the time, but the sheer level of indignation in these immigration cases — even here, after losing at the Supreme Court — is something else.”
During Friday’s White House press briefing, a reporter asked Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt that since the President of El Salvador is coming to visit President Donald Trump, “does President Trump want him to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia with him?”
Leavitt replied that the Supreme Court ordered the administration to ” facilitate the return, not to effectuate the return.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
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