A federal judge said Tuesday that the Trump administration is ignoring court orders, obstructing the legal process and acting in “bad faith” by refusing to provide information about the steps they have taken, if any, to free a mistakenly deported Maryland man from an El Salvador prison and return him to the U.S.
“For weeks, Defendants have sought refuge behind vague and unsubstantiated assertions of privilege, using them as a shield to obstruct discovery and evade compliance with this Court’s orders,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis wrote an the order Tuesday. “Defendants have known, at least since last week, that this Court requires specific legal and factual showings to support any claim of privilege. Yet they have continued to rely on boilerplate assertions. That ends now.”
She gave the administration until 6 p.m. Wednesday to provide those details.
The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration nearly two weeks ago to facilitate Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. from a notorious Salvadoran prison, rejecting the White House’s claim that it couldn’t retrieve him after mistakenly deporting him.
Trump administration officials have pushed back, arguing that it is up to El Salvador — though the president of El Salvador has also said he lacks the power to return Abrego Garcia. The administration has also argued that information about any steps it has taken or could take to return Abrego Garcia is protected by attorney-client privilege laws, state secret laws, general “government privilege” or other secrecy rules.
But Xinis said those claims, without any facts to back them up, reflected a “willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.”
It’s not the first time the Trump administration has faced a scathing order from a federal judge over its approach to deportation cases.
A three-judge panel on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals scolded the administration last week, saying its claim that it can’t do anything to free Abrego Garcia “should be shocking.” That ruling came one day after a federal judge in Washington, D.C., found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt of court for violating his orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador in a different legal case.
Democrats and legal scholars say President Donald Trump is provoking a constitutional crisis in part by ignoring court rulings, while the White House has said it’s the judges who are the problem.
