Federal judge hammers DOJ on whereabouts of alleged MS-13 gang member following SCOTUS order

A Maryland federal judge lambasted government attorneys Friday during a hearing over efforts to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national and Maryland resident, from a prison in El Salvador. 

Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported to El Salvador last month for being an alleged MS-13 gang member. His attorneys, however, have maintained that he does not have any ties to the violent gang. 

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis questioned DOJ attorney Drew Ensign as to Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts after the Supreme Court upheld Xinis’ order that federal officials must coordinate his return back to Maryland.

Xinis asked Ensign where Abrego Garcia was, and under “whose authority,” to which Ensign responded, “I do not have that info.”

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“I do not have that knowledge, and therefore I cannot relay that info to the court,” Ensign said. “They have not provided that confirmation before this hearing.”

The judge was unsatisfied with the government’s answer. “I’m not asking for state secrets. I’m asking where one man is,” Xinis responded. “The government was prohibited from sending him to El Salvador, and now I’m asking a very simple question: ‘Where is he?’”

After Ensign again said he did not have the information on hand, Xinis said, “That is extremely troubling.”

In a Thursday order, the Supreme Court noted that “The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal.” 

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The high court proceeded to say that Xinis’ order “properly requires the government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”

Ensign made clear during the Friday hearing that the government intended to comply with the Supreme Court’s order. When asked what had been done thus far to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, Ensign said it was “unclear.”

“That means they haven’t done anything,” Xinis responded. 

Xinis and Ensign engaged in a back-and-forth over their reading of the high court’s order. Ensign said the government had understood the order to require that it must “hear what the executive branch says in a brief.”

“We read the Supreme Court’s order differently,” Ensign said. “It said deference to the executive branch.”

Xinis, instead, said her reading was that the government take all the necessary steps to facilitate the return as soon as possible.

“I hear you and disagree,” Xinis responded. 

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Xinis proceeded to request daily updates as the case continued “from a person with direct knowledge,” saying she would be issuing an order that delineated the request. 

“My message, for what it’s worth is, if you can do it, do it tomorrow. I don’t understand why it can’t be done,” Xinis said. 

Ensign noted that he thought the orders were “impractical” but reemphasized that the government would be complying with the Supreme Court’s order. 

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked to weigh in on the matter during a Friday briefing in light of El Salvador’s president visiting the White House next week. 

“The Supreme Court made their ruling last night very clear that it’s the administration’s responsibility to facilitate the return, not to effectuate the return,” Leavitt said. 

“The District Judge made clear that she’s not going to let the government continue to play games while a man’s life is at stake,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, counsel for Abrego Garcia, told Fox News Digital. “They need to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia home, and until then, they need to provide meaningful status updates showing their progress in doing so.”

Abrego Garcia was arrested in Baltimore on March 12 after working his shift as a sheet metal apprentice. The complaint states that he had also picked up his now-five-year-old son, who has autism and other disabilities, from his grandmother’s house before his arrest. 

Abrego Garcia had initially fled El Salvador to escape gang violence, according to court documents. Beginning in 2006, gang members “stalked, hit, and threatened to kidnap and kill him in order to coerce his parents to succumb to their increasing demands for extortion.”

He eventually entered the United States illegally in 2011 and began living in Maryland with his brother, who is an American citizen. 

Fox News Digital’s Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.