Latest news with #PaulaXinis
CBS News
2 days ago
- General
- CBS News
Judge orders tranche of documents in Kilmar Abrego Garcia case to be made public
Washington — The federal judge overseeing the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia ordered a batch of documents to be unsealed Wednesday in response to a request from a media coalition that includes CBS News. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said seven records must be be made available on the public docket for Abrego Garcia's case, though one of the documents contains redactions. She also said the transcript from an April 30 hearing will be partially unsealed and include redactions that aim to protect potentially classified information or other sensitive material. Xinis' order was in response to a request to unseal court records made by more than a dozen news organizations, including CBS News. The judge found that the media outlets "rightly contend that, at common law, the public enjoys a presumptive right to access court records, overcome only when outweighed by competing interests." The Justice Department opposed the request to make the records public on two grounds: the filings in question are discovery materials that are typically not available to the press and the public; and keeping the documents sealed is needed to protect national security and prevent sensitive information from being disseminated. As to those arguments, Xinis said "neither withstand scrutiny." One batch of three documents had been available to the public but were then sealed following an April hearing. Another record is a three-page Justice Department request to pause for one week the court's order to turn over certain information about efforts to facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from Salvadoran custody. The document that contains redactions is from Abrego Garcia's lawyers and urged the judge to maintain the original deadlines for information to be produced. The final records made public are a brief, one-sentence notice and additional request from the Justice Department for Xinis to pause proceedings to avoid interfering with efforts to "resolve this litigation." Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran migrant who had been living in Maryland since he arrived in the U.S. illegally in 2011. He was arrested in March and deported to El Salvador, where he was initially held in the notorious maximum-security Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, with a group of more than 230 men, mostly Venezuelans, accused of being gang members. The State Department said in April that Abrego Garica had been moved to a lower-security facility in Santa Ana. But the Trump administration has acknowledged that Abrego Garcia's deportation to El Salvador was a mistake, as he had been granted a legal status in 2019 known as withholding of removal that forbade the Department of Homeland Security from removing him to his home country of El Salvador because he was likely to face persecution by local gangs. The Trump administration has claimed Abrego Garcia is a member of the gang MS-13, citing an allegation from a confidential informant and the clothes he was wearing when he was arrested in 2019, after which he was released from custody. His lawyers have denied Abrego Garcia has any ties to MS-13, and said he has never been charged or convicted of a crime in the U.S. or El Salvador. The Trump administration is seeking to dismiss Abrego Garcia's case.
Fox News
28-05-2025
- General
- Fox News
US judge blasts Trump lawyers for 11th-hour tactics in MS-13 deportation case
A federal judge in Maryland scolded Trump administration lawyers on Tuesday for waiting until the eleventh hour to seek an extension in the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Salvadorian migrant and alleged MS-13 member deported to El Salvador in what officials have acknowledged was an administrative error. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis denied the Justice Department's 30-day extension request, noting that Trump administration lawyers waited until "the very day" their response was due to file. She also said they "expended no effort in demonstrating good cause" to comply with her earlier orders. "They vaguely complain, in two sentences, to expending 'significant resources' engaging in expedited discovery," Xinis said of the government's efforts. "But these are burdens of their own making." She also noted the number of times the administration has delayed submitting information in the case despite the fact the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration this year to "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S. "The court has conducted no fewer than five hearings in this case and at no point had defendants even intimated they needed more time to answer or otherwise respond," Xinis said, adding that the defendants are "intimately familiar with the causes of action and of the pending deadline." "Thus, to say now that additional time is needed to do that which the law requires rings hollow," Xinis said in denying the motion. Hours later, the Trump administration filed with the court a motion to dismiss the case, citing what it described as a "lack of jurisdiction." Xinis has not yet responded to the motion to dismiss. That filing comes amid a monthlong court fight over the status of Abrego Garcia, who remains in El Salvador. Xinis in April ordered the Trump administration to comply with an expedited discovery schedule to determine whether they were complying with the directive to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. Since then, lawyers for the government and Abrego Garcia's attorneys have sparred with Xinis in court over what exactly it means to "facilitate" his return. Xinis most recently described the process as beating a "frustrated and dead horse." She previously took aim at what she deemed to be the lack of information they submitted to the court as part of an expedited discovery process she ordered last month, describing the government submissions as "vague, evasive and incomplete" responses, and which she said demonstrated "willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations." She also chastised their efforts to invoke the state secrets privilege, noting at a status hearing this month that the administration tried to invoke the privilege via a footnote that referenced a filing in a different case before a different federal judge. She said that would not pass muster in her court. The order comes as Trump officials have repeatedly alleged that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, though any formal ties have not been proven. Xinis has indicated growing impatience with the Trump administration's apparent failure to comply with her orders and submit the requested information. This month, she sparred multiple times with DOJ lawyers over their assertions that Abrego Garcia was lawfully detained and deported. "I can't count the number of 'I don't knows' my wonderful clerks and I have heard," she said of depositions from Trump administration officials. The order is the latest development in the ongoing feud between Trump officials and the courts over the use of the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 wartime immigration law used earlier this year to quickly deport migrants from the U.S. To date, the Trump administration has not knowingly complied with any court orders to return migrants who were removed and sent to El Salvador in the early wave of deportation flights, despite earlier court orders from Xinis, Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and others. It is unclear whether Xinis plans to begin contempt proceedings against the administration, though the federal judge in D.C. said earlier this year that he had found probable cause to do so.
CBS News
17-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Judge in Abrego Garcia case frustrated with Trump administration: "This is about good faith versus bad faith"
A federal judge grew frustrated with the Trump administration Friday as it pushed to withhold details on what it has done to reverse the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to a prison in El Salvador as the result of an "administrative error." U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the government to "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S. last month — and has sparred with the administration since then, ordering government lawyers to produce details on their efforts and accusing them of failing to adequately comply. Attorney Andrew Rossman said he and the rest of the legal team seeking to return Abrego Garcia have hit a "roadblock" in discovery efforts, as the Justice Department has invoked the state secrets privilege and other privileges to withhold information in the case. Rossman cited a "paltry" number of documents provided during court-ordered fact-finding. "We have no case without knowing what steps they've taken or what steps they have not taken," to return Abrego Garcia, Rossman said Friday. He pointed to a "dichotomy" between Justice Department filings saying they are complying with a court order to return him and public statements from President Trump and other top administration officials saying they will not return the man. Justice Department attorney Jonathan Guynn argued the government has properly invoked the state secrets privilege in this case and has cooperated with all discovery efforts by Abrego Garcia's attorneys. He said Abrego Garcia's lawyers are "seeking a categorical piercing" of the state secrets privilege to get the answers they want. Xinis rejected the argument, saying, "you can't tell me that these depositions are a good faith effort" to answer questions about what operations were or are underway to return Abrego Garcia. "This is about good faith versus bad faith," she added. "I'm like the cat with the ball of string, and I'm just trying to keep up with the string." Xinis said about her attempts to keep up with the Justice Department's various privilege arguments in the case. Xinis allowed an expedited discovery process to begin last month after Abrego Garcia's legal team accused the Trump administration of failing to follow her order to facilitate his return to the U.S. The Supreme Court had agreed that the administration had to facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from Salvadoran custody and "ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador." Xinis said Friday that the depositions undertaken so far of Trump administration officials resulted in a "goose egg" and had no new knowledge in them, citing numerous "I don't knows" provided in answers to questions from Abrego Garcia's attorneys. Rossman said that he and the rest of the legal team representing Abrego Garcia have only received 32 new documents in their discovery efforts, and 1,140 documents submitted in discovery are being withheld from them under "any manner of privilege" the Justice Department could invoke. Rossman added that the Justice Department has promised additional documents from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but that he and his co-counsel have not received them yet. "It's critical, a life is in the balance. Due process is in the balance," Rossman said about the need for a quick resolution to discovery. Guuyn said that the Justice Department got another update from El Salvador yesterday that Abrego Garcia is in "good health" and has "gained weight" since his detention there. After the two and a half hours of the hearing in open court ended, Xinis held a closed-door argument on the remaining disagreements between the sides on sealed discovery documents. Trump administration spars with judge over deportation Abrego Garcia, who was born in El Salvador, entered the U.S. illegally in 2011 and lived in Maryland after that. In 2019, he was granted a withholding of removal, a legal status that prevented the government from deporting him back to his home country of El Salvador because of a risk of persecution by local gangs. But Abrego Garcia was among the hundreds of migrants sent by the Trump administration to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center prison, or CECOT, in March. A federal immigration official acknowledged in court papers his removal to El Salvador was an "administrative error," but the administration has since declined to return him to the U.S. Instead, top administration officials have claimed Abrego Garcia is a member of the gang MS-13, citing allegations from a confidential informant. His lawyers argue that Abrego Garcia is not a member of MS-13 or any other gang, and has never been charged or convicted of any crimes in the U.S., El Salvador or any other country. Guynn and Xinis got into a heated back-and-forth over the legality of Abrego Garcia's removal on Friday, after Guynn said that Abrego Garcia was "removed lawfully" from the U.S. to El Salvador. "That's not lawful," Xinis said, citing a previous court order that barred Abrego Garcia's removal specifically to El Salvador. "He'll never walk free in the United States." Guynn said, saying he will be in U.S. custody if he was ever returned to the United States as removal proceedings play out. "That sounds to me like an admission of your client that your client will not take steps" to return Abrego Garcia, Xinis said. "That's about as clear as it gets." Xinis later chastised Guynn for suggesting that Abrego Garcia's arrest was lawful, which even Erez Reuveni, a Justice Department attorney who first argued the case, admitted in court proceedings that it was not, and that the arrest was warrantless. "It was highly publicized that Mr. Reuveni was benched," for honestly answering her questions, Xinis said. Mr. Trump and other top administration officials have repeatedly said it is up to El Salvador whether to release Abrego Garcia. As of April 21, he was being held at a lower-security facility in Santa Ana, according to a declaration from a State Department official. In a separate case in Washington, D.C., the Justice Department has argued in court that due to a financial agreement with the Salvadoran government, it does not have constructive custody over the detainees who were moved from the U.S. under the Alien Enemies Act once they are in CECOT or other Salvadoran prisons, and cannot be compelled to return Abrego Garcia or any other person detained in El Salvador under the agreement. Government claims "state secrets" The administration's assertion of privilege was revealed in an order last week from Xinis, which asked lawyers for Abrego Garcia and the Justice Department to file additional legal papers about the administration's "invocations of privilege, principally the state secrets and deliberative process privileges." Attorneys for Abrego Garcia asked for Xinis to grant additional depositions in their discovery efforts, including potentially a deposition with someone with first-hand knowledge of efforts to return Abrego Garcia from the White House. The Justice Department called the request "unreasonable" and added that more depositions "goes well beyond the limited discovery the Court granted." The Justice Department had indicated last month that it would invoke certain privileges to protect information regarding Abrego Garcia's removal from the U.S., citing in a filing the attorney-client privilege, state secrets privilege and certain executive privileges. Administration lawyers had said that a request for documents from Abrego Garcia's legal team about the terms of any arrangement regarding the government's use of El Salvador's notorious prison to house deportees from the U.S. "calls for the immediate production of classified documents, as well as documents that defendants may elect to assert are subject to the protections of attorney-client privilege and the state secrets privilege."
CNN
16-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Frustrated judge demands more justification for Trump DOJ's claim of state secrets in Abrego Garcia case
The federal judge overseeing the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia appeared extremely frustrated Friday by the Trump administration's efforts to thwart a search for answers on what officials are doing to facilitate his return from El Salvador. The lengthy hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, unfolded a month after US District Judge Paula Xinis allowed for expedited fact-finding to help determine what officials are doing to comply with her directive that the government work to bring Abrego Garcia back to the US. But since then, repeated stonewalling from the Justice Department and officials in the administration have complicated those efforts. Part of that resistance has been the invocation of several privileges, including state secrets, to avoid turning over written discovery and to keep officials from answering under oath questions from Abrego Garcia's attorneys. But Xinis appeared highly skeptical that a declaration from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that apparently explained why the state secrets claim was being made was sufficient enough to support the invocation. 'Where I am right now is this affidavit is sufficiently unclear,' Xinis told a DOJ attorney at one point. 'This is basically 'take my word for it.' And I'm not saying at the end of the day you won't be able to make the privilege. What I'm saying is there's not enough there there.' 'I'm asking – really, in good faith – for the Executive Branch to do a little more to show its work for why the privilege works,' the judge said. Courts have long recognized the ability of the federal government to block secret information from being used as evidence – and they have often been deferential to those requests, giving past presidents wide leeway to put information off limits. But decades-old Supreme Court case law requires judges to determine whether the privilege has been properly invoked. Justice Department attorneys have said in court papers that Rubio's declaration explained that providing the information sought by Abrego Garcia's attorneys 'would harm the United States' foreign relations and national security because it would be viewed as a breach of trust and discourage El Salvador and other foreign states from working cooperatively with the United States in the future.' During Friday's hearing, DOJ attorney Jonathan Guynn repeatedly argued that the Rubio declaration was adequate. 'I think there's a lot more meat on the bone than you're giving this declaration credit for,' he told her. But the judge wasn't satisfied by what Rubio offered, describing the non-public filing as 'very, very general' and saying that she must 'have something to review.' Xinis, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, was also frustrated that the Justice Department had only produced the declaration from Rubio in the state secrets bid given the fact that the three officials who have been deposed work for the Department of Homeland Security, not his department. She firmly rejected an argument from Guynn that the Rubio declaration covered the DHS officials and that a declaration from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in a separate immigration case pending in Washington, DC, could be counted on in her court. 'I'm really quite stunned,' she said at one point. 'Get an affidavit or not. Right now, you have no (state secrets) privilege' over the three officials. The judge said she would likely allow the Justice Department to get a separate declaration for the DHS officials that she would similarly scrutinize. And she made clear that if she would allow for such additional submissions, they must be made without delay. 'In this court, it won't take months,' she sternly told Guynn. It's possible that Xinis could order the government to give her an 'in camera,' or confidential, review of the information at issue so she can better decide whether the privilege invocation is justified. At one point, Guynn said the administration recently got an update from officials in El Salvador on Abrego Garcia. He said the Maryland father of three had put on some weight – an apparent attempt to undercut claims that he was being treated poorly in the Central American country's prison system. Guynn spent much of Friday's hearing arguing that the government has complied with Xinis' orders, something that an attorney for Abrego Garcia said was far from accurate. 'My head is spinning, your honor, from what I just heard from the government,' the attorney, Andrew Rossman, said at one point. He told the judge that he didn't think it would be fair for her to give the government more time to submit additional declarations backing up their state secrets claim given the fact that they submitted several — including from DHS — in the DC case. 'I cannot in good conscience – with my duties to my clients – consent to giving them a second bite at the apple,' he told Xinis.
CNN
16-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Frustrated judge demands more justification for Trump DOJ's claim of state secrets in Abrego Garcia case
The federal judge overseeing the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia appeared extremely frustrated Friday by the Trump administration's efforts to thwart a search for answers on what officials are doing to facilitate his return from El Salvador. The lengthy hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, unfolded a month after US District Judge Paula Xinis allowed for expedited fact-finding to help determine what officials are doing to comply with her directive that the government work to bring Abrego Garcia back to the US. But since then, repeated stonewalling from the Justice Department and officials in the administration have complicated those efforts. Part of that resistance has been the invocation of several privileges, including state secrets, to avoid turning over written discovery and to keep officials from answering under oath questions from Abrego Garcia's attorneys. But Xinis appeared highly skeptical that a declaration from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that apparently explained why the state secrets claim was being made was sufficient enough to support the invocation. 'Where I am right now is this affidavit is sufficiently unclear,' Xinis told a DOJ attorney at one point. 'This is basically 'take my word for it.' And I'm not saying at the end of the day you won't be able to make the privilege. What I'm saying is there's not enough there there.' 'I'm asking – really, in good faith – for the Executive Branch to do a little more to show its work for why the privilege works,' the judge said. Courts have long recognized the ability of the federal government to block secret information from being used as evidence – and they have often been deferential to those requests, giving past presidents wide leeway to put information off limits. But decades-old Supreme Court case law requires judges to determine whether the privilege has been properly invoked. Justice Department attorneys have said in court papers that Rubio's declaration explained that providing the information sought by Abrego Garcia's attorneys 'would harm the United States' foreign relations and national security because it would be viewed as a breach of trust and discourage El Salvador and other foreign states from working cooperatively with the United States in the future.' During Friday's hearing, DOJ attorney Jonathan Guynn repeatedly argued that the Rubio declaration was adequate. 'I think there's a lot more meat on the bone than you're giving this declaration credit for,' he told her. But the judge wasn't satisfied by what Rubio offered, describing the non-public filing as 'very, very general' and saying that she must 'have something to review.' Xinis, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, was also frustrated that the Justice Department had only produced the declaration from Rubio in the state secrets bid given the fact that the three officials who have been deposed work for the Department of Homeland Security, not his department. She firmly rejected an argument from Guynn that the Rubio declaration covered the DHS officials and that a declaration from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in a separate immigration case pending in Washington, DC, could be counted on in her court. 'I'm really quite stunned,' she said at one point. 'Get an affidavit or not. Right now, you have no (state secrets) privilege' over the three officials. The judge said she would likely allow the Justice Department to get a separate declaration for the DHS officials that she would similarly scrutinize. And she made clear that if she would allow for such additional submissions, they must be made without delay. 'In this court, it won't take months,' she sternly told Guynn. It's possible that Xinis could order the government to give her an 'in camera,' or confidential, review of the information at issue so she can better decide whether the privilege invocation is justified. At one point, Guynn said the administration recently got an update from officials in El Salvador on Abrego Garcia. He said the Maryland father of three had put on some weight – an apparent attempt to undercut claims that he was being treated poorly in the Central American country's prison system. Guynn spent much of Friday's hearing arguing that the government has complied with Xinis' orders, something that an attorney for Abrego Garcia said was far from accurate. 'My head is spinning, your honor, from what I just heard from the government,' the attorney, Andrew Rossman, said at one point. He told the judge that he didn't think it would be fair for her to give the government more time to submit additional declarations backing up their state secrets claim given the fact that they submitted several — including from DHS — in the DC case. 'I cannot in good conscience – with my duties to my clients – consent to giving them a second bite at the apple,' he told Xinis.
