Main: President Donald Trump, left, waves as he greets El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele as Bukele arrives at the White House, Monday, April 14, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta).
The Trump administration breached the terms of a settlement agreement that was supposed to protect a Venezuelan man living in Maryland from being deported, a federal judge says — choosing to instead ship him off “wrongfully” last month to El Salvador — making him the second individual who has been mistakenly removed from the United States under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA).
The obscure 1798 wartime law, which has been invoked just three times in the past during World War II, has already led to the allegedly wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, another protected Maryland man who was also sent to El Salvador on March 15 under the authority of the AEA.
U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019, brought up Abrego Garcia’s case in an order Wednesday that demanded the return of the 20-year-old Venezuelan, identified only as “Cristian.”
Gallagher ordered the U.S. government to “facilitate Cristian’s return to the United States so that he can receive the process he was entitled to under the parties’ binding Settlement Agreement.” She also blocked the government from removing anyone else covered in the prior court order, which stems from a 2019 class action lawsuit, filed by unaccompanied minors who entered the U.S. and applied for asylum, over policies and procedures that were allegedly being adopted at the time by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The applicants wanted to have their asylum applications adjudicated while living in the United States, saying they had been denied continuances and other postponements in the past.
“[Plaintiffs] commenced this litigation for declaratory and injunctive relief based on allegations that USCIS had adopted policies … that changed how USCIS would implement protections provided to Unaccompanied Alien Children under the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act … and violative of the Administrative Procedure Act and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” the settlement agreement said.
The plaintiffs wound up settling with the Department of Homeland Security in 2024, with their agreement relying on the fact that if the government were to refuse to comply with the order, class members would be able to move to enforce the terms of the deal in court and they would be allowed to stay in the U.S. during the asylum process.
On Wednesday, Gallagher said that Cristian’s removal to El Salvador while his application for asylum was still pending with USCIS violated the terms of the settlement agreement — and cited
“It is an axiomatic principle of contract law that when a defendant breaches a contract, that defendant must restore the situation that existed before the breach,” Gallagher said. “In the case of Cristian, this requires putting him in the position ‘to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.’ In other words, under contract law principles, Cristian, and any other Class Member who has been removed in violation of the Settlement Agreement, must be returned to the United States to await adjudication of his asylum application on the merits by USCIS.”
Gallagher acknowledged that the case before her falls “squarely into the procedural morass that has been playing out very publicly, across many levels of the federal judiciary, in Abrego Garcia v. Noem.”
Abrego Garcia’s case has garnered international attention, quickly becoming one of the most high-profile and contentious lawsuits amid the blizzard of legal challenges filed against Trump and his administration since he retook office in January. The government has conceded in numerous filings that his removal to El Salvador was an “administrative error,” but has steadfastly insisted that he is a member of MS-13 and refused to cooperate with multiple court orders demanding he be brought back to the country.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who is overseeing the Abrego Garcia case, on Tuesday took the Trump administration to task, accusing Justice Department attorneys of intentionally ignoring an order to produce information regarding Abrego Garcia’s deportation to a notorious Salvadoran work prison. Xinis rejected many of the government’s proposed objections to Abrego Garcia’s discovery requests and denounced the DOJ’s “mischaracterization” of the Supreme Court’s order from earlier this month requiring the government to “facilitate” the Maryland father’s release from El Salvador.
Gallagher cited recent judicial interpretation of the word “facilitate” — “an active verb [that] requires steps to be taken as the Supreme Court has made perfectly clear” — an interpretation with which she clearly agreed.
“This Court is mindful of the Supreme Court’s reminder to afford the ‘deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs,’” Gallagher said. “However, this Court is also guided by, and fully agrees with, the definition of ‘facilitate’; espoused by Judge Xinis and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Abrego Garcia. Standing by and taking no action is not facilitation. In prior cases involving wrongfully removed individuals, courts have ordered, and the government has taken, affirmative steps toward facilitating return.”
“Thus, like Judge Xinis in the Abrego Garcia matter, this Court will order Defendants to facilitate Cristian’s return to the United States so that he can receive the process he was entitled to under the parties’ binding Settlement Agreement,” Gallagher added. “This Court further orders that facilitating Cristian’s return includes, but is not limited to, Defendants making a good faith request to the government of El Salvador to release Cristian to U.S. custody for transport back to the United States to await the adjudication of his asylum application on the merits by USCIS.”
Government officials have said that Cristian was arrested in January for possession of cocaine, according to ABC News.
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Jerry Lambe contributed to this report.
