Court hears new arguments over Trump's efforts to return wrongly deported man
USA-TRUMP/MIGRATION-ERROR:Court hears new arguments over Trump's efforts to return wrongly deported man
By Blake Brittain
May 16 - A U.S. judge on Friday will weigh claims that President Donald Trump's administration is improperly failing to provide details about its efforts to return a man to Maryland after he was wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador.
The hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland marks the latest court test for the Trump administration's deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose return U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis and the U.S. Supreme Court have both ordered the government to "facilitate," amid concerns that the administration has been failing to comply with her orders.
Xinis will hold the hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time to consider the government's argument that the details Abrego Garcia's attorneys seek are confidential state secrets. His lawyers contend that the administration is wrongly concealing the information.
"Even as the government speaks freely about Abrego Garcia in public, in this litigation it insists on secrecy," his attorneys said in a court filing on Monday.
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 U.S. 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.
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