Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia are set to resume their depositions of Trump administration officials after Judge Paula Xinis gave the government a one-week reprieve from the discovery process — something she has said she will not do again. 

Mr. Abrego’s lawyers are attempting to provide more context about their client’s deportation in March, when he was sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador without his family’s or his lawyers’ knowledge. After Senator Van Hollen raised hell and visited Mr. Abrego in his home country, it was disclosed that the deportee had been moved to a lower-level prison in El Salvador. 

Judge Xinis told Trump administration officials earlier this month that she wanted the discovery process to move quickly so that she could rule on the question of whether Mr. Abrego should be returned to the United States to face regular deportation proceedings. 

“Cancel vacations. Cancel other appointments,” Judge Xinis told lawyers for President Trump’s Department of Justice on April 15. “There is no tolerance for gamesmanship or grandstanding.”

Lawyers for the department then asked Judge Xinis on April 23 for a one-week break from the discovery process. With the consent of Mr. Abrego’s lawyers, the judge agreed, but she said she won’t do it again. 

In an earlier order, Judge Xinis said she found the government’s lack of compliance with discovery astounding. 

“Given that this Court expressly warned Defendants and their counsel to adhere strictly to their discovery obligations, their boilerplate, non-particularized objections are presumptively invalid and reflect a willful refusal to comply with this Court’s Discovery Order and governing rules,” the judge wrote. 

Judge Xinis had also ordered that the government provide her with daily status updates about Mr. Abrego’s condition in El Salvador. The deportee’s lawyers have the power to question those who filed the status updates with the court, including the acting general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, Joseph Mazzarra, a deputy assistant attorney general, Drew Ensign, and a senior Department of State official, Michael Kozak. 

Advocates for Mr. Abrego have said that the government is already in defiance of a Supreme Court order that the Trump administration must “facilitate” his return to the United States. The government has argued that it has no power in a sovereign country like El Salvador, and therefore can do nothing more than remove domestic barriers to Mr. Abrego’s entry. Attorney General Bondi has said he is more than welcome to book his own flight and come back to America, though she and Mr. Trump cannot dictate that President Bukele release an alleged member of the MS-13 gang. 

“That’s not going to happen,” Mr. Bukele said in the Oval Office beside Mr. Trump when asked by a reporter about releasing Mr. Abrego from prison. 

Mr. Abrego’s lawyers say that the Trump administration has a legal obligation to ask the Salvadoran government officially that he be released. 

“The Supreme Court ordered the Government ‘to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador,” Mr. Abrego’s attorneys argued in a motion to Judge Xinis. “To give any meaning to the Supreme Court’s order, the Government should at least be required to request the release of Abrego Garcia.”