Justice Department suspends lawyer who criticized Trump administration in deportation case

WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice on Saturday placed on leave one of its top immigration lawyers one day after he questioned in court the Trump administration's handling of the deportation of a Maryland man to El Salvadorthat was carried out in error.

Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed in a statement the suspension of Erez Reuveni, who represented the government Friday when a federal judge ruled the Trump administration acted illegally by mistakenly deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

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

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, ordered 29-year-old Abrego Garcia must be returned to the United States. The judge gave the administration until 11:59 p.m. Monday to remove Abrego Garcia from the El Salvador prison where he is being held and return him to U.S. soil.

In a case that has garnered national attention, Abrego Garcia was among the hundreds of alleged members of criminal gangs MS-13 and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua the government expelled from the United States to El Salvador last month. Trump invoked the seldom-used 1798 Alien Enemies Act to expedite the deportations.

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During Friday's hearing in a Greenbelt, Maryland, federal court, Reuveni expressed exasperation with the unwillingness of the Trump administration ‒ his client ‒ to respond to some of his inquiries and told the judge he had questioned why the government could not bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

"My answer to a lot of these questions is going to be frustrating, and I am frustrated,” Reuveni said. "The government made a choice here to produce no evidence.”

The Trump administration, which appealed the judge's decision, acknowledged in court records earlier this week that Garcia's deportation was a mistake, which it attributed to an “administrative error.” But the U.S. government has argued it has no jurisdiction to order his return because he is in a foreign country.

The judge slammed the Justice Department lawyers over Abrego Garcia's arrest and questioned the government's claim it could not get him back. If federal authorities were able to strike terms and conditions for his placement in El Salvador, "then certainly they have the functional control to unwind the decision – the wrong decision," Xinis said.

Abrego Garcia, who had fled El Salvador as a teenager to escape gang violence, was pulled over by federal immigration agents near his home in Beltsville, Maryland, on March 12 and arrested. Three days later, he was expelled and sent back to El Salvador even though he had won a court order six years earlier barring his removal.

Xinis also questioned the government's claim that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13.

“In a court of law, when someone is accused in such a violent and predatory organization, it comes in the form of an indictment, complaint, a criminal proceeding that has then a robust process so that we can assess the facts," she said. "I haven’t heard that from the government."