Latest news with #Xinis
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Unsealed records in Abrego Garcia case offer few details that are new, unknown
'It does not disclose any potentially privileged or otherwise sensitive information for which a compelling government interest outweighs the right to access,' Xinis wrote. Xinis noted that some documents were public before the court was asked to seal them the next day. Those filings contained a back-and-forth between Abrego Garcia's attorneys and the U.S. government over efforts to return him from El Salvador. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Trump administration lawyers often objected to answering questions, arguing that they involve state secrets, sensitive diplomatic negotiations and other protected information. Advertisement For example, the U.S. attorneys mentioned 'appropriate diplomatic discussions with El Salvador.' But they wrote that disclosing the details 'could negatively impact any outcome.' Xinis also ordered the partial release of a transcript from an April 30 court hearing. Some of it will be reacted to protect potentially classified information. Wednesday's ruling was unrelated to the Trump administration pending invocation of the state secrets privilege, a legal doctrine often used in military cases. The administration has argued that releasing information about the Abrego Garcia matter in open court — or even to the judge in private – could jeopardize national security. Advertisement Xinis is yet to rule on the state secrets claim. Abrego Garcia's attorneys have argued that the Trump administration has done nothing to return the Maryland construction worker. They say the government is invoking the privilege to hide behind the misconduct of mistakenly deporting him and refusing to bring him back. Abrego Garcia's deportation violated a U.S. immigration judge's order in 2019 that shielded Abrego Garcia from expulsion to his native country. The immigration judge determined that Abrego Garcia faced likely persecution by a local Salvadoran gang that terrorized his family. Abrego Garcia's American wife sued over his deportation. Xinis ordered his return on April 4. The Supreme Court ruled on April 10 that the administration must work to bring him back. President Donald Trump told ABC News in late April that he could retrieve Abrego Garcia with a phone call to El Salvador's president. But Trump said he wouldn't do it because Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, an allegation that Abrego Garcia denies and for which he was never charged.
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Business Standard
3 days ago
- General
- Business Standard
Judges in deportation cases face evasion and delay from Trump admin
Administration officials have either violated orders or used an array of obfuscations and delays to prevent federal judges from deciding whether violations took place In case after case, the Trump administration has taken a similar approach to the numerous legal challenges that have emerged in recent weeks to President Trump's aggressive deportation plans. Over and over, officials have either violated orders or used an array of obfuscations and delays to prevent federal judges from deciding whether violations took place. So far, no one in the White House or any federal agency has had to pay a price for this obstructionist behavior, but penalties could still be in the offing. Three judges in three different courthouses who have been overseeing deportation cases have said they are considering whether to hold the administration in contempt. All of this first came to the fore when Judge Paula Xinis opened an investigation in mid-April into whether Trump officials had violated her order to 'facilitate' the release of a Maryland man who had been wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador. In a sternly worded ruling in Federal District Court in Maryland, Judge Xinis instructed the Justice Department to tell her what steps the White House had taken, and planned to take, to free the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, from Salvadoran custody. And she wanted answers quickly, declaring that her inquiry would take only two weeks. That was seven weeks ago, and lawyers for Mr. Abrego Garcia say they are no closer now than they were then to understanding why their client was sent to El Salvador or what the government has done to fix what officials have acknowledged was an 'administrative error.' Instead, the lawyers say, the Justice Department has hidden what it knows about Mr. Abrego Garcia's deportation behind repeated claims of privilege. They have also said that the department has offered witnesses for depositions who have little firsthand knowledge of the case and has sought at every turn to slow-walk disclosing documents and responding to questions. 'It is reflective of a pattern of deliberate delay and bad faith refusal to comply with court orders,' they wrote in a filing late last week. 'The patina of promises by government lawyers to do tomorrow that which they were already obligated to do yesterday has worn thin.' Such recalcitrance has left lawyers in the Justice Department who are working on these cases in a difficult position. Several times during hearings in the past few months, the lawyers have had to admit to federal judges that their 'clients' in agencies like the Department of Homeland Security have simply refused to provide the information they were asked for. After one of those lawyers, Erez Reuveni, admitted to Judge Xinis during a hearing in April that he was frustrated by how he could not fully answer her questions, the Justice Department responded to his candor by suspending and then firing him. His dismissal prompted a spate of resignations from the department's Office of Immigration Litigation, which has effectively been hollowed out by the administration's give-no-ground approach. In many ways, the intransigent tactics used in these deportation cases echo those employed by the defense lawyers who represented Mr. Trump in the four criminal cases he faced before he was re-elected. In those cases, only one of which survived to go to trial, the lawyers used every means at their disposal to gum up the works: They challenged minor matters, filed appeals at every turn and repeatedly asked judges for delays. Two of those lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove III, now occupy top positions in the Justice Department. Last week, Mr. Trump said he would nominate Mr. Bove to be an appeals court judge. It remains unclear for now how Judge Xinis intends to handle the department's stubbornness in Mr. Abrego Garcia's case, but the tensions could soon come to a head. Just last week, one day before it was supposed to submit its final answers to her questions, the administration asked for a two-week extension, saying that lawyers for the Justice Department had 'expended significant resources' going through the materials she requested. Responding to her demands, the lawyers wrote, had been 'extremely burdensome,' especially, they noted, because the department — the government equivalent of a giant white-shoe law firm — was hindered by 'limited staff available for document review.' Judge Xinis denied the request on the same day it was made. She is not the only judge to have faced obstructions by the Trump administration. One day after Judge Xinis began her investigation in Maryland, a federal judge in Washington, James E. Boasberg, threatened to open a similar inquiry into a violation of an order he had issued in a different deportation case. In that case, Judge Boasberg said he was considering contempt proceedings to punish the administration for failing to comply with his instructions in March to stop planes of Venezuelan migrants from being sent to El Salvador. One week later, another federal judge in Maryland, Stephanie A. Gallagher, issued a ruling that echoed what Judge Xinis had decided in the Abrego Garcia case. Judge Gallagher told the Trump administration to 'facilitate' the return of a different immigrant — a young Venezuelan man known only as Cristian — who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador on the same set of flights as Mr. Abrego Garcia. But in the days that followed, Judge Gallagher confronted a familiar pattern of evasion and delay. First, the judge looked on as the Justice Department lost its bid to have a federal appeals court put her order on hold. Then, in the wake of that defeat, she ordered the administration to give her an update on the steps it had taken to seek Cristian's release. When the Justice Department filed its update last week (late, as it turned out), it was largely based on a declaration by a federal immigration official that included no new details about the case. The declaration merely repeated facts that everyone already knew: that Cristian was in the custody of El Salvador and that homeland security officials had asked the State Department for help in complying with the judge's initial order. Displeased by all of this, Judge Gallagher fired off a new decision on Wednesday, accusing the administration of having 'utterly disregarded' her order for an update. She gave Trump officials until 5 p.m. on Monday to send another version. And just before that deadline, the Justice Department filed a new declaration from the same immigration official, asserting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was 'personally handling discussions with the government of El Salvador' concerning Cristian. 'Secretary Rubio has read and understands this court's order,' the declaration said, 'and wants to assure this court that he is committed to making prompt and diligent efforts on behalf of the United States to comply with that order.' But in a dueling submission to Judge Gallagher, Cristian's lawyers said the Trump administration had yet to take any steps to bring their client back. The lawyers asked her to hold a hearing with testimony from 'key decision maker(s)' as to why and to punish officials, if needed, with a finding of contempt. Less than two weeks ago, a federal judge in Boston, Brian E. Murphy, said he might seek contempt sanctions himself against the administration after determining that Trump officials had violated one of his orders by putting a group of immigrants on a deportation flight to Africa with less than one day's notice. In April, Judge Murphy expressly forbade such a move, issuing a ruling that barred officials from deporting people to countries not their own without first giving them a 'meaningful opportunity' to object. Judge Murphy stopped short of following the path his colleagues took and ordering the government to 'facilitate' the return of the deported men. Instead, he took the advice of a Justice Department lawyer who suggested the administration could fix the problem it had created by providing the men with hearings in Africa at which they could challenge their removal. Not surprisingly, Judge Murphy seemed a bit confused and more than a little outraged just days later when department lawyers asked him to reconsider this solution, claiming that he had imposed it on the White House and that it was more cumbersome than they had initially imagined. Judge Murphy had to remind the lawyers that the whole proposal had been their idea, not his. 'Defendants have mischaracterized this court's order,' he wrote last week, 'while at the same time manufacturing the very chaos they decry.'
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- General
- Boston Globe
Judges in deportation cases face evasion and delay from Trump administration
All of this first came to the fore when Judge Paula Xinis opened an investigation in mid-April into whether Trump officials had violated her order to 'facilitate' the release of a Maryland man who had been wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up In a sternly worded ruling in U.S. District Court in Maryland, Xinis instructed the Justice Department to tell her what steps the White House had taken, and planned to take, to free the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, from Salvadoran custody. And she wanted answers quickly, declaring that her inquiry would take only two weeks. Advertisement That was seven weeks ago, and lawyers for Abrego Garcia say they are no closer now than they were then to understanding why their client was sent to El Salvador or what the government has done to fix what officials have acknowledged was an 'administrative error.' Instead, the lawyers say, the Justice Department has hidden what it knows about Abrego Garcia's deportation behind repeated claims of privilege. They have also said that the department has offered witnesses for depositions who have little firsthand knowledge of the case and has sought at every turn to slow-walk disclosing documents and responding to questions. Advertisement 'It is reflective of a pattern of deliberate delay and bad faith refusal to comply with court orders,' they wrote in a filing late last week. 'The patina of promises by government lawyers to do tomorrow that which they were already obligated to do yesterday has worn thin.' Such recalcitrance has left lawyers in the Justice Department who are working on these cases in a difficult position. Several times during hearings in the past few months, the lawyers have had to admit to federal judges that their 'clients' in agencies like the Department of Homeland Security have simply refused to provide the information they were asked for. After one of those lawyers, Erez Reuveni, admitted to Xinis during a hearing in April that he was frustrated by how he could not fully answer her questions, the Justice Department responded to his candor by suspending and then firing him. His dismissal prompted a spate of resignations from the department's Office of Immigration Litigation, which has effectively been hollowed out by the administration's give-no-ground approach. In many ways, the intransigent tactics used in these deportation cases echo those employed by the defense lawyers who represented Trump in the four criminal cases he faced before he was reelected. In those cases, only one of which survived to go to trial, the lawyers used every means at their disposal to gum up the works: They challenged minor matters, filed appeals at every turn and repeatedly asked judges for delays. Advertisement Two of those lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove III, now occupy top positions in the Justice Department. Last week, Trump said he would nominate Bove to be an appeals court judge. It remains unclear for now how Xinis intends to handle the department's stubbornness in Abrego Garcia's case, but the tensions could soon come to a head. Just last week, one day before it was supposed to submit its final answers to her questions, the administration asked for a two-week extension, saying that lawyers for the Justice Department had 'expended significant resources' going through the materials she requested. Responding to her demands, the lawyers wrote, had been 'extremely burdensome,' especially, they noted, because the department — the government equivalent of a giant white-shoe law firm — was hindered by 'limited staff available for document review.' Xinis denied the request on the same day it was made. She is not the only judge to have faced obstructions by the Trump administration. One day after Xinis began her investigation in Maryland, a federal judge in Washington, James E. Boasberg, threatened to open a similar inquiry into a violation of an order he had issued in a different deportation case. In that case, Boasberg said he was considering contempt proceedings to punish the administration for failing to comply with his instructions in March to stop planes of Venezuelan migrants from being sent to El Salvador. One week later, another federal judge in Maryland, Stephanie A. Gallagher, issued a ruling that echoed what Xinis had decided in the Abrego Garcia case. Gallagher told the Trump administration to 'facilitate' the return of a different immigrant — a young Venezuelan man known only as Cristian — who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador on the same set of flights as Abrego Garcia. Advertisement But in the days that followed, Gallagher confronted a familiar pattern of evasion and delay. First, the judge looked on as the Justice Department lost its bid to have a federal appeals court put her order on hold. Then, in the wake of that defeat, she ordered the administration to give her an update on the steps it had taken to seek Cristian's release. When the Justice Department filed its update last week (late, as it turned out), it was largely based on a declaration by a federal immigration official that included no new details about the case. The declaration merely repeated facts that everyone already knew: that Cristian was in the custody of El Salvador and that homeland security officials had asked the State Department for help in complying with the judge's initial order. Displeased by all of this, Gallagher fired off a new decision Wednesday, accusing the administration of having 'utterly disregarded' her order for an update. She gave Trump officials until 5 p.m. Monday to send another version. And just before that deadline, the Justice Department filed a new declaration from the same immigration official, asserting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was 'personally handling discussions with the government of El Salvador' concerning Cristian. 'Secretary Rubio has read and understands this court's order,' the declaration said, 'and wants to assure this court that he is committed to making prompt and diligent efforts on behalf of the United States to comply with that order.' Advertisement But in a dueling submission to Gallagher, Cristian's lawyers said the Trump administration had yet to take any steps to bring their client back. The lawyers asked her to hold a hearing with testimony from 'key decision maker(s)' as to why and to punish officials, if needed, with a finding of contempt. Less than two weeks ago, a federal judge in Boston, Brian E. Murphy, said he might seek contempt sanctions against the administration after determining that Trump officials had violated one of his orders by putting a group of immigrants on a deportation flight to Africa with less than one day's notice. In April, Murphy expressly forbade such a move, issuing a ruling that barred officials from deporting people to countries not their own without first giving them a 'meaningful opportunity' to object. Murphy stopped short of following the path his colleagues took and ordering the government to 'facilitate' the return of the deported men. Instead, he took the advice of a Justice Department lawyer who suggested the administration could fix the problem it had created by providing the men with hearings in Africa at which they could challenge their removal. Not surprisingly, Murphy seemed a bit confused and more than a little outraged just days later when department lawyers asked him to reconsider this solution, claiming that he had imposed it on the White House and that it was more cumbersome than they had initially imagined. Murphy had to remind the lawyers that the whole proposal had been their idea, not his. 'Defendants have mischaracterized this court's order,' he wrote last week, 'while at the same time manufacturing the very chaos they decry.' This article originally appeared in . Advertisement
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
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." Judge Presses Trump Doj On Abrego Garcia Deportation; Answers Leave Courtroom In Stunned Silence 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." Read On The Fox News App "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. Trump's Remarks Could Come Back To Bite Him In Abrego Garcia Deportation Battle 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. 100 Days Of Injunctions, Trials And 'Teflon Don': Trump 2Nd Term Meets Its Biggest Tests In Court 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. Click To Get The Fox News App 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 article source: US judge blasts Trump lawyers for 11th-hour tactics in MS-13 deportation case
AsiaOne
17-05-2025
- Politics
- AsiaOne
Judge says Trump administration not detailing efforts to return wrongly deported man, World News
A US judge expressed frustration on Friday (May 16) that President Donald Trump's administration had yet to provide sufficient details about its efforts to bring back a man deported in error from the United States and sent to a prison in El Salvador. US District Judge Paula Xinis said at a hearing that the government had not produced information from high-level officials that adequately explained how it was complying with her order to "facilitate" the return of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Xinis also questioned whether the administration intended to comply with the order at all, citing a statement from US Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem that Abrego Garcia "will never be allowed to return to the United States". "That sounds to me like an admission," Xinis said. "That's about as clear as it can get." The Trump administration has argued that details sought by Abrego Garcia's attorneys are confidential state secrets, but Xinis said the Justice Department had not shown how the doctrine would apply. "You have not given me anything that I can really say 'Ok, I understand what of the plaintiffs' requests or the court's order, in the government's view, poses a reasonable danger to diplomatic relations,'" the judge said. Xinis said information provided by government officials in Abrego Garcia's case so far had been "an exercise in utter frustration". Abrego Garcia's lawyer Andrew Rossman told Xinis it was "deeply disturbing" that the administration indicated it was in compliance with the judge's orders while "at the same time the highest officials in the government are saying the opposite". The hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, marks the latest court clash over Abrego Garcia's deportation, amid concerns that the administration failed to comply with Xinis' orders even after the US Supreme Court said it "should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken" to facilitate his return. Department of Justice attorney Jonathan Guynn said during the hearing that the Supreme Court's ruling acknowledged there would be "some and maybe many details we can't share" with the court. [[nid:716816]] Guynn and Xinis sparred over some fundamental details about the case, including whether it concerned government "misconduct" and if the administration could legally remove Abrego Garcia. Xinis said several government statements indicated Abrego Garcia had been deported by mistake. "The attempt to revise that is going to be exceptionally difficult," she said. Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador on March 15 despite an order protecting him from removal. His case has sparked concerns among Democrats and some legal analysts that Trump's administration is willing to disregard the judiciary, an independent and equal branch of government. Xinis last month ordered the administration to provide more information about what it was doing to secure Abrego Garcia's return. She previously said that the administration had not given her any information of value about its efforts. Administration officials have accused courts of interfering with the executive branch's ability to conduct foreign policy. They have invoked the state secrets privilege, a legal doctrine that allows the government to block the disclosure of information that could harm national security interests, to conceal details about its efforts to return Abrego Garcia. The US Department of Justice said in a court filing this week that Abrego Garcia's lawyers have "all the information they need" to confirm that it has complied with the court's order on his return. Xinis said on Friday that she would likely give the administration another chance to supplement its evidence, which had included an affidavit from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the state-secrets privilege that she said was insufficient. ALSO READ: Is the president not telling the truth?' Judge asks about Trump's Abrego Garcia comments
