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Attorney General

DOJ opposes court-ordered return of immigrant, suspends lawyer who said he shouldn’t have been deported

By Debra Cassens Weiss

April 7, 2025, 2:23 pm CDT

Updated: The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay a federal judge’s order to return an immigrant mistakenly sent to a prison in El Salvador in Central America—a move that followed the department’s decision to place one of its lawyers on indefinite leave, apparently for his admissions in the case.

The government is asking the high court to issue an administrative stay to block the order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of the District of Maryland and to vacate her injunction.

The Washington Post and the New York Times have coverage of the government’s April 7 filing, while the New York Times, CNN and NBC News are among the publications with coverage of the DOJ lawyer’s suspension. Additional stories are noted by How Appealing.

The government application claims that Xinis “ordered unprecedented relief: dictating to the United States that it must not only negotiate with a foreign country to return an enemy alien on foreign soil but also succeed by 11:59 p.m. tonight.”

“While the United States concedes that removal to El Salvador was an administrative error,” the application says, “that does not license district courts to seize control over foreign relations, treat the executive branch as a subordinate diplomat, and demand that the United States let a member of a foreign terrorist organization into America tonight.”

Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily paused Xinis’ deadline Monday afternoon to allow for a full review by the Supreme Court, the Washington Post reports.

Xinis is an appointee of former President Barack Obama.

The government had alleged that the mistakenly deported immigrant, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, is a member of MS-13, a gang designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States. Xinis said the government had offered no evidence to show that he is a gang member.

The now-suspended DOJ lawyer, Erez Reuveni, was the acting deputy director of the department’s Office of Immigration Litigation. He had conceded in court that Abrego Garcia should not have been sent to El Salvador, and he had no evidence showing why the immigrant was even arrested, according to NBC News.

“The absence of evidence speaks for itself,” he said. “The government made a choice here to produce no evidence.”

When Xinis asked what kind of practical impediment kept the government from securing Abrego Garcia’s return, Reuveni said he asked the same question when the case was assigned to him.

“I have not yet received an answer that I find satisfactory,” he said.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi told the New York Times in a statement that Reuveni did not follow her order.

“At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” Bondi said. “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences.”

The case is Noem v. Abrego Garcia.

Updated April 7 at 3:25 p.m. to include reporting on Chief Justice John Roberts’ order.

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U.S. Supreme Court

Expected noncompliance with court orders shouldn’t defeat standing, Kavanaugh says in DNA-test arguments

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 25, 2025, 11:08 am CST

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared divided Monday in arguments over a death row inmate’s quest for a DNA test to show that he wasn’t inside a trailer where robbery accomplices killed an 85-year-old woman.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh was among the justices appearing sympathetic to Texas inmate Ruben Gutierrez’s bid for testing to establish that he didn’t deserve the death penalty for the 1998 murder, report Courthouse News Service, Law.com, SCOTUSblog and the New York Times.

Kavanaugh wrote the 6-3 Supreme Court decision in 2023 that allowed Texas inmate Rodney Reed to pursue a DNA test.

The issue in the Reed case was whether the statute of limitations barred his request for a DNA test in his federal civil rights lawsuit. Before reaching the issue, however, the Supreme Court said Reed had sufficiently alleged an injury that would be redressed by a finding that state DNA testing procedures violate due process.

In Gutierrez’s case, the issue is whether Gutierrez had standing to challenge Texas statute that allows postconviction DNA testing only when it could lead to an overturned conviction. The law does not allow testing when it affects only the sentence, as in Gutierrez’s case.

Texas argues that Gutierrez doesn’t have standing to bring a due process challenge to the statute because he would still be eligible for the death penalty under Texas law and wouldn’t be entitled to the test.

Texas law permits a capital murder conviction in a robbery scheme even if other accomplices killed the victim and even if the defendant didn’t anticipate the murder.

Lawyers for Gutierrez, on the other hand, argue that jurors would not have sentenced Gutierrez to death if DNA showed that he was not in the home and that he wasn’t a “major participant” in the crime. They also argue that courts don’t have to determine whether state officials would redress Gutierrez’s injury if courts were to declare the statute unconstitutional.

Kavanaugh “appeared to take umbrage at the suggestion” that prosecutors might not allow DNA testing even if the Texas statute is found unconstitutional, according to Law.com.

SCOTUSblog reported on Kavanaugh’s comment.

“I just don’t see,” he said, “how we can say something’s not redressable just because the prosecutor is going to say I’m not going to comply with a court order. You know, if President Nixon said I’m not going to come turn over the tapes no matter what, you wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, I guess we don’t have standing to hear the executive privilege case.’”

Courthouse News Service points out that Kavanaugh’s comment comes following suggestions by Vice President JD Vance that presidents could ignore court orders that interfere with their lawful exercise of power.

The case is Gutierrez v. Saenz.

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