If President Donald Trump's administration brings back to the U.S. any of the deportees he sent to El Salvador, it could have significant ripple effects for his administration, a legal analyst claimed Friday.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland immigrant who had protected legal status, was sent to a notorious prison in the Central American country under the accusation that he had gang ties, the Associated Press reported on April 1.
The administration admitted his inclusion in the deportations was a mistake, but his lawyers are still at work trying to bring him back to the U.S.
The administration's lawyer claimed in court that it is an impossible task.
In a court filing, the administration revealed that Garcia was deported due to an "administrative error," the AP reported.
In a hearing Friday, the lawyers representing Garcia argued, "There is no such thing as a removal order to nowhere. He is removable to many countries on Earth. El Salvador is simply not one of them," read MSNBC's Chris Jansing from court notes updated by reporters in the room.
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Garcia "has what's called a withholding of an order of removal, meaning a judge had already determined that he was deportable from the country," said MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin. "But that withholding order says because he fears retaliation and because he has legitimate reasons to fear that, based on past persecution, he cannot be returned to El Salvador, which is his home country."
The Trump administration argued in court that it does not have the jurisdiction to seek Garcia's return from El Salvador.
Garcia's lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in an interview: "Honestly, I expect that if we made a good faith ask to the government of El Salvador, I think there's a high likelihood that the government of El Salvador would actually accede to that request."
Jansing asked why, if it was a mistake, the U.S. couldn't simply get Garcia back.
Kristy Greenberg, the former criminal division chief for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, said that the administration is arguing that Garcia isn't in U.S. custody anymore and there's nothing it can do.
"But as the plaintiff's lawyer has said, you haven't even shown that you've tried anything," said Greenberg. "El Salvador is a friendly country to the United States with this matter. We are paying $6 million to this El Salvadoran government to house these individuals. So, it seems that there are many things that, at a minimum, they could do. They could ask, hey, can you give this person back to us?"
She also noted that the U.S. already had two individuals returned to the U.S. because they were women and El Salvador said they wouldn't accept them.
The problem with that, for the administration, Rubin said, is that it would prove that the U.S. could get the migrants back from El Salvador.
"Why would the Department of Justice not be willing to pick up the phone? Because it's a concession that once somebody has been removed to and placed in El Salvador in custody, that they can do something about it," Rubin said. "And that is an argument that they don't want to concede."
The reason they don't want to concede the point is that they're also in another lawsuit in front of Judge James Boasberg dealing with a similar matter, she said.
"They don't want to concede that they have the power to reverse any of this with respect to one man, Mr. Abrego Garcia, because if they can reverse it for him, can't they reverse it for everybody?" asked Rubin.
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