Justice Dept. says it’s not required to bring back wrongly deported man

Federal officials said Sunday that a ruling by the Supreme Court required only that the administration allow Kilmar Abrego García to return should he be released by the government of El Salvador. The administration also argued, in filings Sunday evening in U.S. District Court in Maryland, that Abrego García “is no longer eligible” for the protection from deportation that should have prevented him from being sent to El Salvador in the first place.

The contentions set the stage for another test of the ability of the federal judiciary to rein in an administration that has moved to aggressively expand its executive power in ways courts have deemed illegal and unconstitutional.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers had no immediate comment on the court filings. But the lawyers have repeatedly said he is danger of being tortured and killed in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a mega-prison where dozens of inmates share a cell. On Saturday, they argued that the government should face contempt of court for failing to lay out efforts to repatriate Abrego García after the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the administration must facilitate his return.

The Trump administration said Sunday that it had “no updates” on those efforts, according to a letter to the court Sunday evening. While noting that the president of El Salvador “is currently in the United States and will be meeting with President Donald Trump,” Justice Department officials wrote, “the federal courts have no authority to direct the Executive Branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way, or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner.”

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