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Judge to Hear Arguments in Garcia Case 05/16 06:19
(AP) -- A federal judge in Maryland will hear arguments Friday over whether
the Trump administration can invoke the state secrets privilege to withhold
information about bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered Abrego Garcia's return from El
Salvador in April and has since directed the administration to provide
documents and testimony showing what it has done, if anything, to comply.
Trump administration lawyers claim many of those details are protected,
including sensitive diplomatic negotiations. Revealing the specifics would harm
national security because foreign governments "would be less likely to work
cooperatively with the United States," they argued in a brief to the court.
Abrego Garcia's lawyers contend the administration hasn't shown "the
slightest effort" toward retrieving him after his mistaken deportation. And
they point to President Donald Trump's interview last month with ABC News, in
which he said he could bring Abrego Garcia back but won't.
"Even as the Government speaks freely about Abrego Garcia in public, in this
litigation it insists on secrecy," Abrego Garcia's lawyers wrote to the court.
The focus of Friday's hearing will be a legal doctrine that is more often
used in cases involving the military and spy agencies. Xinis's ruling could
impact the central question looming over the case: Has the Trump administration
followed her order to bring back Abrego Garcia?
The Trump administration deported the Maryland construction worker to El
Salvador in March. The expulsion violated a U.S. immigration judge's order in
2019 that shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to his native country because
he faced likely persecution by a local gang that had terrorized his family.
Abrego Garcia's American wife sued, and Xinis ordered his return on April 4.
The Supreme Court ruled on April 10 that the administration must work to bring
him back.
Xinis later lambasted the administration for failing to explain what it has
done to retrieve him and instructed the government to prove it was following
her order. The Trump administration appealed, but the appeals court backed
Xinis in a blistering order.
The debate over state secrets privilege is the latest development in the
case.
In a legal brief filed Monday, Trump administration attorneys said they
provided extensive information, including 1,027 pages of documents, to show
they're following the judge's order.
They argued that Abrego Garcia's legal team is now "attempting to pry into
the privileged inner workings of the U.S. government apparatus and its
communications with a foreign government."
"Nearly all the additional materials Plaintiffs demand are protected by the
state secrets and deliberative process privileges and so cannot be produced,"
U.S. attorneys wrote.
In their brief, Abrego Garcia's attorneys urged the judge to be skeptical,
writing that the state secrets privilege "is not for hiding governmental
blunders or malfeasance."
Abrego Garcia's lawyers noted that U.S. attorneys claim in court to be
following Xinis's order, while "senior officials from the President on down
were saying precisely the opposite to the American public."
For example, they cited an April 16 statement from Attorney General Pam
Bondi, who said, "He is not coming back to our country."
"Over and over again, official statements by the Government -- in
congressional testimony, television interviews, and social media -- confirm
that producing this information would not imperil national security," Abrego
Garcia's attorneys wrote.
The hearing is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. in federal court in Greenbelt.
Trump administration officials have said Abrego Garcia was deported based on
a 2019 accusation from Maryland police that he was an MS-13 gang member. Abrego
Garcia denied the allegation and was never charged with a crime, his attorneys
said.
The administration later acknowledged that Abrego Garcia's deportation to El
Salvador was " an administrative error " because of the immigration judge's
2019 order. But Trump and others have continued to insist that Abrego Garcia
was in MS-13.
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