He was deported in error. Why won’t the government provide any information about him?
On Thursday, the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man it had sent to a notorious Salvadoran mega-prison in what the government has conceded was an “administrative error.” Not one of the justices dissented from that ruling.
The justices sent the case back to the federal trial court. The court asked for information by Friday morning on Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts and what steps the government has taken and will take going forward to facilitate his return. But the government came up empty-handed. Its lawyers said they couldn’t provide that information on time, effectively defying the court’s order.
“Foreign affairs cannot operate on judicial timelines, in part because it involves sensitive country-specific considerations wholly inappropriate for judicial review,” they wrote in a court filing.
Essentially, the administration is saying it can’t deliver information on Abrego Garcia on time because he is in the custody of a foreign government, and that facilitating his return may require sensitive foreign policy considerations. The US is paying the Salvadoran government to © Vox
