Overnight #KilmarAbregoGarcia’s attorneys asked Judge #Xinis for severe sanctions against the #Trump admin for violating court orders, saying officials stonewalled them for months, & outright lied.

They want fines & an investigation.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.195.0.pdf

It was that rationale with which the #DOJ took issue in its request to the appeals court to put the case on hold. Lawyers for the department assailed it as “unprecedented, baseless & constitutionally offensive.” [GMAFB]

“The district court’s increasingly fantastical injunctions continue to threaten serious harm to the government’s national-security & foreign-affairs interests,” DOJ lawyers wrote.

In his order last week, Judge #Boasberg sided with the #DOJ, saying that he could not fully refute the #Trump admin’s claims, even while expressing skepticism that the claims were true. Still, he used a different rationale to order the White House to figure out a way to give the #Venezuelans a way to seek relief, saying that the #Constitution demanded they be provided with some sort of #DueProcess.

The lawyers for the #Venezuelans claimed that the #Trump admin had what is known as “constructive custody” over them because they were being held in #ElSalvador under an agreement between the White House & the Salvadoran president, Nayib #Bukele.

The #DOJ disagreed, arguing that the men were in the sole custody of El Salvador & were therefore beyond the reach of orders issued by American federal #judges.

Ever since the men landed in #ElSalvador, their lawyers have been seeking another order to bring them back to the #US. And last week, Judge #Boasberg gave them some of what they wanted, directing #Trump ofcls to give the men the #DueProcess they were denied, but leaving it up to the admin to offer an initial plan about how to carry out his instructions.

“The government has identified no legitimate purpose that is served by holding #immigrant detainees at #Guantanamo, rather than at detention facilities inside the #UnitedStates,” #ACLU attys argue in the suit. “Instead, defendants are using the threat of #detention at Guantanamo to frighten #immigrants, deter future migration, induce self-deportation, & coerce people in detention to give up claims against removal & accept #deportation elsewhere.”

…The plan also comes amid intensifying #legal efforts to block the admin from using #Guantanamo Bay to house #immigrant detainees altogether. A federal class-action lawsuit pending in Washington indicates that there are roughly 70 immigrant detainees currently held there & facing “punitive” conditions, such as insufficient food, weekly changes of clothes & rodent infestation.

Some 800 Europeans — including 1 Austrian, 100 Romanians & 170 Russians — are being considered for the transfers, acc/to one of the documents. That element of the plan has alarmed some US diplomats, who note that most #European countries are American #allies that are cooperative in taking back deportees & that there’s no need to send the people to #Guantanamo.

The discussions come as the #Trump admin presses #ICE for higher arrest numbers, w/snr policy adviser #StephenMiller calling for 3,000 #arrests a day. The agency is also tight on #detention space & pushing for funding from #Congress to hire more agents & expand domestic detention capacity.

“Cristian” has a conviction for cocaine possession. #Trump admin claims he's Tren de Aragua, which he denies. Cristian is a member of a #ClassAction filed in the Federal District of Maryland in 2019 for unaccompanied alien #children seeking to prevent govt from removing them before they could complete #asylum proceedings.

The ruling did not expressly order the #Trump admin to bring the hundreds of #Venezuelans currently being held in #CECOT a mega-prison in #ElSalvador back to the #US.

In his ruling, #Boasberg wrote that the individuals were deported without adequate notice or the right to contest their removals.

“That process—which was improperly withheld—must now be afforded to them,” Boasberg wrote.