By Susan Heavey and Mike Scarcella
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Sunday a Justice Department attorney had been placed on leave after he failed to vigorously defend the government’s handling of a man erroneously deported to El Salvador in what a U.S. judge called a “wholly lawless” detention.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S legally with a work permit, be returned to Maryland despite the DOJ’s position that it cannot return him from a sovereign nation.
The Trump administration has appealed the case, and a ruling is expected as soon as Sunday night ahead of the judge’s 11:59 p.m. Monday deadline for his return.
At a court hearing on Friday, Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni struggled to answer questions from the judge about the circumstances of Abrego Garcia’s deportation.
Reuveni said he had raised questions with U.S. officials about why the federal government could not bring back Abrego Garcia but had received no “satisfactory” answer. He acknowledged what he called an “absence of evidence” justifying Abrego Garcia’s detention and deportation.
Bondi told “Fox News Sunday” that Reuveni was no longer actively working on the case or in the department.
“It’s a pending matter right now. He was put on administrative leave by (Deputy U.S. Attorney) Todd Blanche on Saturday,” Bondi said. “You have to vigorously argue on behalf of your client.”
Reuveni’s supervisor, August Flentje, was also placed on leave, ABC News reported. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
Reuveni and Flentje, who according to his LinkedIn page is deputy director of the Justice Department’s Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
President Donald Trump’s administration acknowledged in previous court filings that it had erroneously deported Abrego Garcia to his home country despite a previous court order prohibiting his removal.
The White House and administration officials have accused Abrego Garcia of being a criminal gang member, but there are no pending charges. His lawyers have denied the allegation.
‘WHOLLY LAWLESS’
Xinis, in a written order on Sunday explaining her Friday ruling, said, “There were no legal grounds for his arrest, detention or removal” or evidence that Abrego Garcia was wanted for crimes in El Salvador.
“Rather, his detention appears wholly lawless,” she wrote in the filing.
Abrego Garcia had complied fully with all directives from immigration officials, including annual check-ins, and had never been charged with or convicted of any crime, the judge wrote.
Abrego Garcia was stopped and detained by immigration agents on March 12 and questioned about his alleged affiliation with the MS-13 gang, which he has denied. MS-13 was originally formed by Salvadoran immigrants fleeing civil war in their homeland and is now involved in myriad illegal enterprises, U.S. officials say.
Abrego Garcia has been detained in El Salvador in what the judge called “one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere.”
The Trump administration has faced criticism in the U.S. courts and elsewhere of its stepped-up enforcement against immigration rights. A judge in Washington, D.C., is separately weighing whether the Trump administration violated a court order not to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members amid ongoing legal proceedings.
Some of those deported have active asylum cases, and civil rights groups have argued the administration has failed to provide due process under the law.
Bondi on Sunday vowed to continue the administration’s deportations.
“The best thing to do is to get these people out of our country,” she said.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Mike Scarcella; Editing by Leslie Adler and Ross Colvin)
