U.S. President Donald Trump met face-to-face with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Monday, but at least one Democratic lawmaker was weighing a potential visit with the Central American leader to demand the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an immigrant to the U.S. who was wrongly expelled to El Salvador, as the Trump administration doubled down on its refusal to ensure the Maryland resident is returned safely.
After the Department of Justice once again argued in a court filing Sunday that U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland has "no authority" to compel the administration to secure Abrego Garcia's return, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wrote a letter to El Salvador's ambassador to the U.S., requesting a meeting with Bukele during his trip to Washington this week.
Van Hollen pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous ruling last week ordering the Trump administration to "facilitate" Abrego Garcia's return. The Maryland resident was denied asylum by a U.S. court in 2019, but the judge in that case found that he had a credible fear of persecution and torture in his home country of El Salvador and ruled that he should not be deported there.
The Trump administration's expulsion of Abrego Garcia violated that order, Xinis and the Supreme Court have both found.
"Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia never should have been abducted and illegally deported, and the courts have made clear: The administration must bring him home, now," said Van Hollen on Monday. "However, since the Trump administration appears to be ignoring these court mandates, we need to take additional action. That's why I've requested to meet with President Bukele during his trip to the United States, and—if Kilmar is not home by midweek—I plan to travel to El Salvador this week to check on his condition and discuss his release."
Van Hollen's statement followed hearings over the weekend in Xinis' courtroom, in which the DOJ defied the judge's previous order to provide daily updates on Abrego Garcia's status and questioned her authority.
DOJ lawyers confirmed in a Saturday filing that Abrego Garcia was "alive and secure" at El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center and said he was "detained pursuant to the sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador."
But in their Sunday filing they provided no update on the man's status and said "the federal courts have no authority to direct the executive branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way, or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner."
The DOJ said it objected to Xinis' "requirement of daily status reports and reserve[d] the right to challenge that requirement further," and pushed back against specific requests Abrego Garcia's lawyers made for the administration to facilitate his return.
Abrego Garcia's team asked Xinis to compel the administration to "ensure his safe passage to the aircraft that will return him to the United States" and said the DOJ should be required to prove by Monday why the administration should not be held in contempt of court.
The administration has repeatedly suggested that Xinis has attempted to involve her court in foreign affairs, and the DOJ's response to the lawyers' requests was no exception; the department's attorneys wrote in the Sunday filing that the "requested orders involve interactions with a foreign sovereign—and potential violations of that sovereignty."
"[A] federal court cannot compel the executive branch to engage in any mandated act of diplomacy or incursion upon the sovereignty of another nation," read the filing.
The DOJ accused Abrego Garcia's team of "intrusive supervision," and claimed the Supreme Court's order requires the administration only to admit him to the U.S. after he makes it back from El Salvador—a process, it suggested, which is solely up to El Salvador's government.
"The government's arguments against returning Abrego Garcia should make your blood run cold," said civil rights litigator Patrick Jaicomo. "The government claims if it can ship a person to a foreign jurisdiction, they're gone. There's no limiting principle. It can make these arguments for intentional renditions of U.S. citizens."
U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said the DOJ's Sunday filing displayed "lawlessness" and demanded that Trump "act now" during his meeting with Bukele to ensure Abrego Garcia is returned to his family in Maryland.
On Fox News Monday, Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser, denied the basic facts of Abrego Garcia's case, saying he was not sent to El Salvador in error.
"This was the right person sent to the right place," he said, adding that the U.S. taking action to return him home would amount to kidnapping "against the will" of El Salvador, Abrego Garcia's home country.
After Nayib told reporters in the U.S. on Monday that he would not move to return Abrego Garcia, Secretary of State Marco Rubio also addressed the matter as though there had never been a ruling in 2019 protecting the Maryland resident from being deported to El Salvador.
"I don't understand what the confusion is," Rubio said. "This individual is a citizen of El Salvador. He was illegally in the United States and was returned to his country."
Abrego Garcia's case, said David Dayen of The American Prospect, marks the first legal proceeding in which Trump has been presented "with the clear choice of obeying a Supreme Court order or flouting it."
"So far he's opting for the latter," Dayen said, "bolstered by the administration's most powerful adviser."
