President Donald Trump’s border czar insists immigration authorities were right to deport a Maryland dad that the Supreme Court said should be returned—and that the Department of Justice said was deported by mistake.
“I think we made the right decision,” Tom Homan told Newsmax on Saturday. “He’s an MS-13 gang member, according to our intelligence, and according to the intelligence of El Salvador.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the deported man, has never been charged or convicted of a crime. In fact, he has previously testified in court about resisting gang recruitment in his native El Salvador—the reason he asked for asylum in the United States.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has admitted it made a mistake in deporting him because of an “administrative error,” and a judge ordered Trump to “facilitate” his return to the United States as soon as possible.
Homan also said that the Trump administration would abide by the district court order, which was upheld by the Supreme Court earlier this week. But he cautioned this would likely prove a slow process.
“They want us to facilitate, we’ll facilitate,” he said. “However, we gotta remember, he’s an El Salvadoran national in custody of the El Salvadoran government, so we’ll facilitate what we can.”
The DOJ had initially attempted to assert it would not be able to coordinate getting Abrego Garcia back into the country, a position the Supreme Court slammed as “plainly wrong” in its recent ruling.
Maryland District Court Judge Paula Xinis, who ordered the Trump administration to “take all available steps” to bring him home, demanded to be updated on his location and plans for his return during a session on Friday.
At that hearing, she lambasted the government’s lawyers for failing to provide that information, saying she was “extremely troubled” by the lack of cooperation.
The case has now effectively entered into a standoff, with Xinis demanding daily updates about efforts to secure Abriego Garcia’s return and with the DOJ’s legal representatives saying they can’t provide information they haven’t actually been given by their clients.
The post Trump Border Czar: ‘Right Decision’ to Deport Dad After DOJ Admits Mistake appeared first on The Daily Beast.
