As the White House continues to stonewall a federal judge’s demand for information about efforts to secure a mistakenly deported Maryland man, politicians on both sides of the aisle are considering the case’s wider implications — and its messaging.
On Tuesday, Justice Department lawyers revealed little information about Kilmar Abrego Garcia in court papers, saying they were engaging in “appropriate diplomatic discussions” with El Salvador, though they offered no detail. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, meanwhile, asked the judge for a hearing on the “government’s failure to comply with this court’s orders.”
The White House has repeatedly resisted court orders — not only in Abrego Garcia’s case, but in other legal proceedings as well. The posture is pushing the administration ever closer to an open showdown with the judicial branch that could threaten the constitutional balance of power. Three courts — including the Supreme Court — have directly told the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release and devise a way of handling his case as it should have been handled if the government had not flown him to El Salvador on March 15, in violation of an earlier court order.
As the legal and political battle over Abrego Garcia and the administration’s deportation policy heats up, a divide is growing among Democrats over the handling of the case. The Hill’s Al Weaver and Mychael Schnell write some worry about whether it’s a winning issue as Republicans go on offense.
Four House progressives arrived in El Salvador on Monday to push for Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S., following Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who made the trek to the Central American country last week. The group has framed the effort as pushing back on a threat to basic constitutional rights.
Few Democrats dispute the issue of due process in Abrego Garcia’s case as they slam President Trump’s defiance of a Supreme Court ruling ordering the White House to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return. But some describe the administration’s focus on the issue as a deliberate distraction from other news, including the dwindling stock market, rising price of groceries and widespread confusion over Trump’s tariff policies.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) argued on CNN over the weekend that the administration “picked out this case and this man because it’s about a subject that they want to keep in the news.” The White House alleges Abrego Garcia has ties to the Salvadoran gang MS-13, which his family denies. Still, Democratic operatives say the optics matter.
“People can’t afford eggs, and … you’re flying to sit with someone who’s accused of being in a gang,” one Democratic operative told The Hill. “Republicans have given us such an opportunity with DOGE and … with Trump tanking the economy. Obviously, you can walk and chew gum at the same time, but I don’t think we can take our eyes off the prize in terms of talking about real, real-world impacts and how people are being hurt in their everyday lives by some of these policies.”
CNN: As Democrats rally around Abrego Garcia case, some worry a due process argument won’t land with voters.