IF D.H.S. HEAD POSED IN SALVADOREAN PRISON, WHERE'S KILMER?

CBS NEWS

Greenbelt, Maryland — A federal judge on Tuesday admonished the Department of Justice for not complying with her order to facilitate the release of a Maryland man who the Trump administration admitted had been mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador, and ordered expedited discovery in the case.

"We have to give process to both sides, but we're going to move… there will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding," U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis said at the start of a hearing in the case involving Kilmer Abrego Garcia, who was sent to El Salvador last month.

Xinis ordered for the depositions to be completed by April 23. When the Justice Department suggested they might invoke privilege, Xinis told them "cancel vacation, cancel other appointments" and added that she expects "all hands on deck."

Lawyers for Abrego Garcia and the Justice Department faced off in Xinis' courtroom Tuesday, one day after El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele said he would not be returning Abrego Garcia. Drew Ensign, a Justice Department attorney, said Tuesday that the Trump administration would facilitate Abrego Garcia's return if he arrived at a port of entry, and continued to dodge straightforward questions on what the Trump administration is doing, if anything, to return the man.

Joseph Mazzarra, acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a filing shortly before the hearing that if Abrego Garcia does show up at a port of entry, he would be detained by the Department of Homeland Security and either removed to a third country or be stripped of a legal protection that he was granted in 2019, which forbid immigration authorities from removing him to his home country of El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, said before the hearing that she is asking the Trump administration to "stop playing games with the life of Kilmar."

At Tuesday's hearing, Xinis said the Justice Department "has not yet fulfilled the mandate, the order, that I issued," while lawyers for the Justice Department asked for any orders to be stayed after the Supreme Court ruling.

Xinis said Tuesday that "every day Mr. Abrego Garcia is detained in CECOT is another date of irreparable harm," and gave both sides two weeks to complete expedited discovery, or fact finding, in the case, including sworn depositions from Trump administration officials with first-hand knowledge of the efforts to return him.

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