Shorouk Express
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Lawyers for a wrongfully deported Maryland man will be allowed to depose Trump administration officials to determine whether they complied with a Supreme Court ruling to “facilitate” his return from a brutal El Salvador prison.
“Cancel vacations, cancel other appointments,” Maryland District Judge Paula Xinis told lawyers for the government on Tuesday.
The judge is setting an expedited schedule for depositions for Department of Homeland Security and State Department officials to testify under oath about their efforts to retrieve Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the administration has repeatedly admitted in court was deported to a notorious jail in El Salvador due to an “administrative error.”
Judge Xinis will determine whether the administration is acting in “good faith” after doing “nothing” and getting “no real response” about any efforts to secure his release despite a unanimous ruling from the nation’s high court.
“There will be no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding,” she said.
Depositions must be completed by April 23.
Outside the courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland, Abrego Garcia’s wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura told a crowd of protesters she “will not stop fighting” until she sees her husband alive.
“Kilmar, if you can hear me, stay strong,” she said. “God hasn’t forgotten about you. Our children are asking, ‘When you will come home?’And I pray for the day to tell them the time and date you will return.”
She said she is “pleading with the Trump administration” as well as Salvadoron president Nayib Bukele “to stop playing political games with the life of Kilmar.”
“Our family is torn apart during this scary time. Our children miss their dad so much,” she said. “Enough is enough. My family can’t be robbed from another day without seeing Kilmar. This administration has already taken so much from my children, from Kilmar’s mother, brother, sisters, and me.”
This is a developing story
