Trump Said 'Quiet Part Out Loud' on Deportations: Balance of Power Panel

Bloomberg Balance of Power Panelists Jeanne Sheehan Zaino and Maura Gillespie react to Trump's answers on deportations during a contentious interview with ABC News and talk how the public views his border policy.

A federal judge lifted her weeklong pause on litigation that seeks to require the Trump administration to say what it has done to facilitate the return of a Maryland resident deported by mistake to an El Salvador prison.

US District Judge Paula Xinis ruled Wednesday that the government must answer questions on its efforts to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the US. Xinis had paused the case on April 23, after the Trump administration said it engaged in “appropriate diplomatic discussions” with El Salvador about Abrego Garcia.

At the time, that marked a dramatic change in position after President Donald Trump and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele had previously said they had no power to return Abrego Garcia to the US. But on Tuesday, Trump reiterated in an interview with ABC News that it’s not his decision to make.

Abrego Garcia was deported March 15 despite a 2019 court order saying he couldn’t be sent to his native country. On April 10, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration, which admitted Abrego Garcia was deported through an administrative error, must “facilitate” his release from Salvadoran custody and his return to the US.

Xinis has repeatedly expressed frustration over the failure to return Abrego Garica, whose case has come to symbolize Trump’s disdain for the courts amid his push for mass deportations. In a brief entry on the court’s docket in Maryland federal court Wednesday, Xinis wrote that she was denying the government’s request to pause the case. She said the reasons were stated at a court proceeding. That hearing was not open to the public.

The administration says Abrego Garica is a member of the MS-13 gang and a dangerous criminal, but he was never charged with a crime and he denies being a gang member. He was initially kept in El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, but was later moved to another facility.

‘I Could’

In an interview Tuesday with ABC News, correspondent Terry Moran asked Trump if he would call Bukele to seek Abrego Garcia’s release.

“You could get him back,” Moran said. “There’s a phone on this desk,” Moran said, pointing to the phone on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. “I could,” Trump said.

“You could pick it up, and with all—” Moran said.

“I could,” Trump said.

“—the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, ‘Send him back right now,’” Moran said.

“And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that,” Trump said. He said: “I’m not the one making this decision.”

“You’re the president,” Moran said.

“I— no, no, no, no. If— follow the law. You want me to follow the law. If I were the president that just wanted to do anything, I’d probably keep him right where he is—” Trump said.

“The Supreme Court says what the law is,” Moran said.

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