A federal justice department attorney has been placed on leave by the Trump administration for purportedly failing to defend the administration vigorously enough after it says it erroneously deported a Maryland man to El Salvador, which a US judge called a “wholly lawless” detention.
The action against justice department lawyer Erez Reuveni came after US district judge Paula Xinis had ordered that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant who lived in the US legally with a work permit, be returned to Maryland despite the Trump administration’s position that it cannot return him from a sovereign nation.
The administration has appealed the case, and a ruling is expected as soon as Sunday night ahead of an 11.59pm Monday deadline for his return, which was set by the judge.
Donald Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, went on Fox News Sunday and announced there that Reuveni was no longer actively working on the Abrego Garcia case or in the justice department in general.
At a court hearing on Friday, Reuveni struggled to answer questions from the judge about the circumstances of Abrego Garcia’s deportation.
Reuveni said he had raised questions with US 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.
Of Reuveni, Bondi told Fox News Sunday: “It’s a pending matter right now. He was put on administrative leave by [deputy US attorney general] Todd Blanche on Saturday.
“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 the deputy director of the justice department’s office of immigration litigation, civil division, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump’s administration asserted 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.
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 12 March and questioned about his alleged affiliation with the MS-13 gang, which he has denied.
Abrego Garcia has been detained in El Salvador’s terror confinement center, colloquially known as Cecot, which the judge called “one of the most dangerous prisons in the western hemisphere”.
The Trump administration has faced criticism in the US courts and elsewhere of its stepped-up enforcement against immigration rights. A judge in Washington DC 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, maintaining: “The best thing to do is to get these people out of our country.”
