Marco Rubio refuses to give judge info on deported man
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has indicated the administration of President Donald Trump may flout a judge’s order requiring it to provide information about efforts to return a wrongly deported man from El Salvador, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
At a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the top diplomat was asked if he had formally requested the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador.
Rubio responded, “I would never tell you that. And you know who else I’d never tell? A judge.”
He added that he does not feel bound by the court order. “Because the conduct of our foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States and the executive branch, not some judge.”
The statements underscored the Trump administration’s defiant stance towards judicial checks on its power.
In the case of Abrego Garcia, US District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered government lawyers to offer updates about measures the Trump administration had taken to return Abrego Garcia to the US. On April 15, she announced she would seek sworn testimony about those efforts from administration officials.
But Xinis temporarily halted the directive last week at the administration’s request.
With the pause expiring at 5pm on Wednesday (21:00 GMT), she has scheduled new deadlines in May for administration officials to provide sworn testimony about what had been done to retrieve Abrego Garcia.
A resident of Maryland, Abrego Garcia has been held in El Salvador since March 15, when he was among the immigrants placed on a deportation flight and transferred to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a maximum-security prison.
He has since been transferred to another facility, according to Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who visited Abrego Garcia in detention.
The deportation violated an immigration judge’s 2019 order barring his deportation on the basis that he would face persecution from local gangs.
Abrego Garcia and his family have said he fled El Salvador at age 16, after gangs pursued him for recruitment. He arrived in the US without documentation.
Given the 2019 protection order, the US government initially acknowledged that Abrego Garcia’s deportation had been the result of an “administrative error”.
But in the wake of the public outcry the case has caused, the Trump White House has since doubled down on its position that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang and will never be allowed to live in the US.
While Abrego Garcia has not been charged with any crimes, the White House has pointed to his tattoos as evidence of gang affiliation, something experts on MS-13 have cast doubt upon.
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