U.S. won’t say whether it’s facilitating return of mistakenly deported man, despite judge’s order

The Trump administration confirmed to a federal judge Saturday that a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported last month remains confined in a notorious prison in El Salvador.

But the government’s filing did not address the judge’s demands that the administration detail what steps it was taking to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States. The government only said Garcia is under the authority of the El Salvador government.

The administration’s confirmation of Garcia’s location was confirmed to the court by Michael G. Kozak, who identified himself in the filing as a “Senior Bureau Official” in the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs.

The filing comes one day after a U.S. government attorney struggled in a hearing to provide U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis with any information about Garcia’s whereabouts. Xinis issued an order after Friday’s hearing requiring the administration to disclose Garcia’s “current physical location and custodial status” and “what steps, if any, Defendants have taken (and) will take, and when, to facilitate” his return.

“It is my understanding based on official reporting from our Embassy in San Salvador that Abrego Garcia is currently being held in the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador,” Kozak’s statement said. “He is alive and secure in that facility. He is detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador.”

Kozak’s statement did not address the judge’s latter requirements.

Xinis was exasperated Friday with the government’s lack of information.

“Where is he and under whose authority?” the judge asked in the hearing. “I’m not asking for state secrets. All I know is that he’s not here. The government was prohibited from sending him to El Salvador, and now I’m asking a very simple question: Where is he?”