Lawyers for the government have been providing daily updates on the case.
President Donald Trump’s administration can only take steps to remove “domestic obstacles” for the potential return of a man it erroneously deported, not force the El Salvadoran government to release him, according to a new court filing.
U.S. officials deported Garcia to his home country of El Salvador in March. Garcia was ordered deported in 2019 based on an immigration court’s finding that he is a member of the MS-13 gang, but he was granted what’s called withholding of removal, a protection that prevented his return to El Salvador, because a judge agreed that he could face danger there.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele told reporters at the White House on April 14 that he will not return Garcia to the United States.
“You’re suggesting I smuggle a terrorist into the United States,” Bukele said during the Oval Office meeting with President Trump. “I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.”
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Attorney General Pam Bondi said during the meeting that it’s “up to El Salvador if they want to return him.”
“That’s not up to us,” Bondi said.
That judge, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, in an updated order, removed the word effectuate but told the government to “take all available steps to facilitate the return of Garcia to the United States as soon as possible.”
That includes requesting the release of Garcia from the prison in El Salvador, providing air transportation for Garcia, and dispatching personnel to accompany him upon his release to make sure that he can safely reach an aircraft that will fly him back to the United States, the lawyers said.
Government lawyers said in response, in one of the April 13 filings, that the request should be denied.
Reading that “facilitate” means removing domestic obstacles, but nothing else, “follows directly from the Supreme Court’s order,” they said, pointing to how the court emphasized any order must give due regard to Executive Branch authorities over foreign affairs.
“On the flipside, reading ‘facilitate’ as requiring something more than domestic measures would not only flout the Supreme Court’s order, but also violate the separation of powers,” the lawyers said. “The federal courts have no authority to direct the Executive Branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way, or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner. That is the ‘exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations.’”
The lawyers also said that the court should not order it to produce documents outlining the U.S.–El Salvador pact for sending illegal immigrants to El Salvador and having them imprisoned there.
“It would be inappropriate for this Court to hastily order production of these sensitive documents,” the filing stated.
A demand for testimony from U.S. officials about the case is inappropriate because, if given, that “could interfere with ongoing diplomatic discussions,” the lawyers wrote.
