An appellate court handed the Trump administration a small victory Thursday evening by temporarily blocking a lower court’s order that required the government to take steps to return a Venezuelan national it deported to El Salvador.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit gave no explanation for its decision but granted the administration the stay until Thursday. Justice Department attorneys argued to the appellate court that the government legally deported Daniel Lozano Camargo to a terrorist prison in El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act.
Trump invoked the powerful wartime law in March as a means to bypass routine immigration proceedings and quickly deport alleged members of Tren de Aragua.
Lozano Camargo, however, was covered by a court-authorized settlement agreement that required the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to issue a decision on his asylum claim before his deportation. The government did not honor that agreement, nor was it required to, DOJ attorneys told the appellate court.
The attorneys said that vetting migrants’ asylum claims before deporting them was a process only available under Title 8, not under Title 50, which includes a set of war and national security laws.
“None of that has anything to do with AEA removals under Title 50 of the U.S. Code, which do not involve any ‘final removal orders’ at all, and as to which asylum is not a cognizable defense in any event,” the attorneys wrote.
Lozano Camargo’s removal was based on ICE’s determination that he was an alleged Tren de Aragua member subject to the Alien Enemies Act. But a federal judge ordered the government to “facilitate” his return from the Salvadoran prison in April, the second such court order after a judge in a separate case issued the same order for Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
Both Lozano Camargo and Abrego Garcia were removed on a controversial set of flights on March 15 that has since ensnared the Trump administration in numerous lawsuits across the country.
The government has been involved in a court dispute in Maryland in Abrego Garcia’s case over the meaning of the term “facilitate.” Administration officials have admitted to deporting him to the prison improperly, but they have also said they have no ability to order the Salvadoran government to return him. Trump recently contradicted that argument in a television interview by saying he did, in fact, have the power to call the Salvadoran president about the case.
DEMOCRATS BERATE NOEM FOR NOT FACILITATING RETURN OF ABREGO GARCIA
In Lozano Camargo’s case, his attorneys argued that the Trump administration did not provide sufficient evidence that he was a Tren de Aragua member, that he was entitled to have his asylum claim heard, and that he was entitled to make a habeas corpus claim in a court before being deported under the Alien Enemies Act.
DOJ attorneys told the appellate court that Lozano Camargo was “not entitled to asylum, and his removal is not otherwise at issue in this litigation or in any habeas proceedings.”
