US judge orders Trump officials’ depositions in Abrego Garcia case

WASHINGTON

A US judge ordered Tuesday that Trump administration officials be questioned under oath as part of a two-week process of "expedited discovery" to determine whether the government is doing enough to try to bring back a Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador.

“What the record shows is that nothing has been done. Nothing. I asked for reports from individuals with direct knowledge and I’ve gotten very little information of any value,” District Judge Paula Xinis was quoted as saying at a hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Lawyers for the Justice Department and those representing Abrego Garcia have one week to conduct the depositions.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported to his native country on March 15 along with hundreds of other alleged Salvadoran and Venezuelan gang members, even though a previous court order from a separate case barred him from being removed from the US.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) admitted that it made an error in deporting Abrego Garcia but claimed it did not have the authority to bring him back because he was now in the custody of another country.

After a series of legal wranglings in federal court, the nation's highest court stepped in last week and ordered the Trump administration to give details on Abrego Garcia's status to have him returned to the US.

Xinis said she gave “a very simple directive” for updates on steps the government had taken.

"There will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding," she said, according to media reports.

As Democrats are pushing for Abrego Garcia's return to the US "immediately," the White House said Tuesday that media coverage on the issue is "despicable."

"President (Donald) Trump and our administration will not rest until every single violent illegal alien is removed from our country,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

"The Democrat and media outrage over Abrego Garcia, an MS-13 illegal criminal alien who was hiding in Maryland, has been nothing short of despicable."

On Monday, El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele ruled out returning Abrego Garcia, saying: "How can I return him to the United States? Should I smuggle him to the United States? Or what do I do? Of course, I'm not going to do it."