A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of a second illegal alien who the Trump administration deported to El Salvador and says is a gang member.
United States District Court Judge Stephanie Gallagher issued the decision Wednesday, ruling that the deportation of the Venezuelan national violated a previous court settlement. Gallagher argued that a settlement agreement she approved in November on behalf of thousands of migrants required the man’s asylum case to be heard before he was deported.
“A core purpose of the Settlement Agreement would be nullified if Class Members with pending asylum applications could be summarily removed from the United States and thus rendered ineligible for asylum,” Gallagher said as she addressed the case of the Venezuelan national, identified only as Cristian.
The Trump administration argues that Cristian’s deportation did not violate federal law, as it had invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies act, thereby making the Venezuelan national ineligible to receive asylum and remain in the United States.
The administration is also locked in a battle with United States District Court Judge James Boasberg, who recently threatened to hold the Trump administration in contempt of court over its use of the Alien Enemies Act to expedite the removal of more than 250 suspected gang members to the El Salvadoran prison.
The new ruling from Gallagher comes after a different judge ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of El Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the White House says is a member of MS-13.
Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele said that he had no intention of returning Garcia to the United States. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” Bukele said in response to a journalist while meeting with Trump in the White House, also adding that he also will not release him from El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center.
“I’m not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country … we just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country in the western hemisphere and you want us to go back?” Bukele noted. “That’s not going to happen.”
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