By REGINA GARCIA CANO, ERIC TUCKER and MEGAN JANETSKY Associated Press
Venezuela has released 10 jailed Americans in exchange for getting home scores of migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador months ago under the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. The resolution represents a diplomatic achievement for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and helps President Donald Trump in his goal of bringing home Americans jailed abroad. El Salvador will send back some 300 Venezuelan migrants whom the Trump administration agreed to pay $6 million to house in a notorious Salvadoran prison. The arrangement drew immediate blowback when Trump invoked an 18th century wartime law to quickly remove men his administration had accused of belonging to the violent Tren de Aragua street gang.
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press
A federal appeals court says it is "shocking" that The Trump administration claims it can't do anything to free Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison and return him to the U.S. A three-judge panel from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday unanimously refused to suspend a judge's decision to order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with her instruction to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return. Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan, wrote that he and his two colleagues "cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos."
By SEUNG MIN KIM and MARCOS ALEMÁN Associated Press
Updated
President Donald Trump's top advisers and El Salvador president Nayib Bukele say that they have no basis for the small Central American nation to return a Maryland man who was wrongly deported there last month. Trump administration officials are emphasizing that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to a notorious gang prison in El Salvador, was a citizen of that country and that U.S. has no say in his future. And Bukele, who has been a vital partner for the Trump administration in its deportation efforts, said "of course" he won't release him back to U.S. soil. The Supreme Court has called for the Trump administration to "facilitate" the return of Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press
The Justice Department is resisting a federal judge's demand for more information about flights that took deportees to El Salvador. The government is arguing that the court should end its so-called "continued intrusions" into the authority of the executive branch. It's the latest development in a showdown between the Trump administration and the judge who temporarily blocked deportations under an 18th century wartime declaration. The judge later is now giving the administration until Thursday at noon to either provide the requested information or to make a claim that it must be withheld because it would harm "state secrets."
President Donald Trump says he is exploring whether he can send American criminals jailed in the "most severe cases" to be incarcerated in other countries. His comments come one day after El Salvador offered to take them in, along with migrants in the U.S. illegally whom Trump is seeking to deport. Trump told reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office that, "If we had a legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat." He said he doesn't know if the U.S. can do that, but "we're looking at that right now." Secretary of State Marco Rubio reached an unusual agreement Monday with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele for the Central American country to accept U.S. deportees of any nationality, including American citizens and legal residents who are imprisoned for violent crimes.
