The Department of Justice is refusing to comply with a federal court order to help bring back a Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador—saying the courts have no power to tell President Donald Trump how to handle it.
In a court filing Sunday, DOJ lawyers pushed back hard against efforts to force the Trump administration to act, arguing that the judiciary can’t interfere in matters they call part of the president’s exclusive authority.
“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,” the filing reads.
That power, they said, belongs solely to the president.
“That is the ‘exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations,’” the Trump administration lawyers added.
The case centers on Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported despite a 2019 immigration court ruling protecting him from removal. The Supreme Court recently instructed the government to take steps to bring him back—but stopped short of saying exactly how.
Garcia’s legal team has been urging the administration to send a plane and officials to retrieve him. They also asked the court to hold the administration in contempt if it refuses to act.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis sharply criticized DOJ attorneys for failing to comply with her previous order demanding answers.
“Have they done anything?” Judge Xinis asked Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign.
“Your honor, I don’t have personal knowledge,” Ensign said.
“OK, so they’ve done nothing,” Xinis replied.
Garcia’s attorneys asked the court on Saturday to compel Trump officials to “ensure his safe passage to the aircraft that will return him to the United States.” They also demanded the administration explain by Monday why it shouldn’t be held in contempt.
But in their Sunday filing, DOJ attorneys called those demands “intrusive,” saying courts should not oversee the executive branch’s actions in this area—not even through daily status updates.
“The Court should therefore reject Plaintiffs’ request for further intrusive supervision of the Executive’s facilitation process beyond the daily status reports already ordered,” the filing said.
The Trump administration insists Garcia is alive and being held by El Salvador under its own laws. “Detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador,” one filing reads. But officials offered no new developments in their Sunday update.
They also pushed back against even minimal court monitoring: “The United States objects to the requirement of daily status reports and reserves the right to challenge that requirement further.”
