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(WASHINGTON) — The attorney for Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was deported in error to El Salvador, said Tuesday that he expects Abrego Garcia to be returned to the U.S.

Abrego Garcia — despite having protected legal status preventing his deportation to El Salvador, where he escaped political violence in 2011 — was sent to that country’s notorious CECOT mega-prison following what the government said was an “administrative error.”

Trump administration officials have said Abrego Garcia is a member of the criminal gang MS-13, but his attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg has disputed that, saying the government has provided no proof of their allegations.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia from El Salvador by Monday at midnight, before Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday issued a temporary administrative stay delaying the midnight deadline in order to give the court more time to consider the arguments presented by both sides.

“[The order] just means that he recognized that the Supreme Court needs a little bit of time to do its work,” Sandoval-Moshenberg told ABC News. “I have every expectation that the Supreme Court will rule quickly and will rule in our favor, because when push comes to shove, this is not an exceptional case. The only exceptional thing has been the way in which the government has dug in its heels on making right what they messed up.”

“Jennifer is really worried,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said of Abrego Garcia’s wife. “She expects and I expect that we are going to get him back.”

In the filing earlier Monday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that a federal court cannot order a president to engage in foreign diplomacy, which he says is implicitly involved in any potential return of Abrego Garcia.

“The Constitution charges the President, not federal district courts, with the conduct of foreign diplomacy and protecting the Nation against foreign terrorists, including by effectuating their removal,” Sauer wrote. “And this order sets the United States up for failure. The United States cannot guarantee success in sensitive international negotiations in advance, least of all when a court imposes an absurdly compressed, mandatory deadline that vastly complicates the give-and-take of foreign-relations negotiations.”

Sandoval-Moshenberg, however, said that the government has not provided evidence that it would be impossible to return his client.

“I don’t think there’s anyone in this whole country that doesn’t recognize the glaring truth, which is that if we picked up the phone and just asked, he’d be on a plane in a day or two,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.

Referring to the agreement El Salvador signed with the Trump administration to house migrant detainees, Sandoval-Moshenberg said, “El Salvador is doing all of this because we’re paying them $6 million to do it, and we have an agreement with them.”

“The U.S. government is acting as if the Salvadoran government chose, for Salvador and legal reasons, to arrest him and incarcerate him,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “That couldn’t be farther from the case.”

Sandoval-Moshenberg called Abrego Garcia’s arrest by U.S. authorities a “targeted action.”

“They went out, they stopped his car, they pulled him over, they pulled him out of the car, and they arrested him,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “And he was actually with his 5-year-old child at the time, and they made him call his wife to come pick up the kid. This was a targeted action.”

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(JENA, La.) — An immigration judge has given lawyers representing the Department of Homeland Security a little over 24 hours to provide Mahmoud Khalil’s legal team with evidence that he is removable from the U.S. under the allegations lobbed against him.

Khalil, legal permanent resident with a green card, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at his Columbia University housing in New York last month.

Khalil, a leader of the encampment protests at Columbia last spring, was detained on March 8, then taken to an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, before ending up in a Louisiana detention center, his attorneys said.

At an immigration hearing in Jena, Louisiana, on Tuesday, Judge Jamee Comans set another hearing for Friday to give Khalil’s team time to review the evidence and respond to it.

Comans said she will then make a determination whether he is removable or order him to be released.

Khalil’s wife, who appeared via video feed at his hearing, is set to give birth within “a couple of weeks,” according to Khalil’s lawyer, Marc Van Der Hout.

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(WASHINGTON) — Speaker Mike Johnson met Tuesday at the White House with President Donald Trump and House Republicans holding out against voting for the Senate-approved budget bill to fund Trump’s agenda, according to a top GOP leadership aide.

GOP leaders are again relying on Trump to help get the bill across the finish line this week before the House takes a two-week recess.

Johnson has promised to pass the Senate’s amendment to the House budget blueprint, with a vote planned Wednesday. But like the first time the House passed the budget blueprint in February, Johnson has several public holdout votes to flip — and is counting on the president to deliver them.

Speaker Mike Johnson met Tuesday at the White House with President Donald Trump and House Republicans holding out against voting for the Senate-approved budget bill to fund Trump’s agenda, according to a top GOP leadership aide.

GOP leaders are again relying on Trump to help get the bill across the finish line this week before the House takes a two-week recess.

Johnson has promised to pass the Senate’s amendment to the House budget blueprint, with a vote planned Wednesday. But like the first time the House passed the budget blueprint in February, Johnson has several public holdout votes to flip — and is counting on the president to deliver them.

 

“I think we’ll be moving forward this week,” he said.

Asked before the meeting what his message to the holdouts was, Johnson said “We have to get the job done. The American people are counting on us, and we are optimistic we’ll move this ball forward.”

Several of the GOP holdouts are invited to meet with Trump, but Reps. Ralph Norman and Tim Burchett — two of the holdouts — told reporters that they weren’t invited to the meeting.

Another hard no vote, Rep. Chip Roy, told reporters that there are “enough” Republicans opposed to the measure to kill it. He said he asked senators to come to a meeting to explain the math on a whiteboard that shows how their plan would reduce the deficit, but “they can’t prove the math.”

Johnson can afford to h= three votes, but up to a dozen Republicans have signaled they’re not yet convinced to vote for it.

Passing this legislation through both chambers is required to kick off the process to craft the massive budget bill that includes much of Trump’s sweeping domestic agenda.

Johnson also told reporters that the White House will provide holdouts with “a combination of commitments and assurances and all the leaders in both chambers.”

Majority Leader Steve Scalise said, “The president’s been our best advocate and whip to get this agenda moved forward every step of the way. And this bill is no different. Failure is just not an option.”

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(FRISCO, Texas) — The family of a 17-year-old student charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of another student at a high school track meet last week is “sincerely saddened” over the death, the teen’s attorneys said in their first public statement since the incident.

The incident occurred on April 2 at a Frisco Independent School District stadium during a track and field championship involving multiple schools in the district.

Austin Metcalf, 17, an 11th grader at Frisco Memorial High School, died after police said another student stabbed him during an altercation in the bleachers at the meet.

The suspect in the deadly stabbing — Karmelo Anthony, a student at Frisco Centennial High School — has been charged with first-degree murder, police said.

His family has retained Dallas-Fort Worth-area defense attorneys Billy Clark of the Clark Law Firm and Kim Cole of K Cole Law in the case, according to a joint press release from their firms.

“Karmelo and the entire Anthony family are sincerely saddened that a life was lost and offer their condolences to the family of Austin Metcalf,” the attorneys said in a statement on Monday.

“During this difficult time, we urge the public to refrain from rushing to judgment before all the facts and evidence are presented,” they continued. “Karmelo, like all citizens of the United States, is entitled to a fair and impartial legal process; we are committed to ensuring that Karmelo’s rights are indeed protected throughout each phase of the criminal justice system.”

Anthony is being held in the Collin County jail on $1 million bond.

The attorneys said they plan to work with the Collin County District Attorney’s Office to seek a reduced bond and a “better determination of the filed charge.”

“This will certainly be a long road ahead and during this challenging time, we ask for prayers for both families and we ask for your patience and respect for the legal process as we seek the truth,” the attorneys said.

In the wake of the incident, Anthony’s family has launched a fundraiser on the platform GiveSendGo, which as of early Tuesday afternoon has raised more than $236,000. The fundraising page did not detail how the funds will be used.

Anthony allegedly confessed to the killing and officers say he told them he was protecting himself, according to the arrest report.

One officer who responded to the scene said Anthony told him unprompted, without being asked any questions about the incident, “I was protecting myself,” according to the arrest report.

When the officer advised another responding officer that he had “the alleged suspect,” Anthony reportedly responded, “I’m not alleged, I did it,” according to the arrest report.

Anthony “made another spontaneous statement” and reportedly asked an officer if what happened “could be considered self-defense,” according to the arrest report.

The stabbing occurred under the Memorial High School tent in the stadium bleachers at approximately 10 a.m. on April 2, according to the arrest report.

Responding officers said they spoke to multiple witnesses, including one who reported that the altercation began after Metcalf told Anthony to move out from under their team’s tent, according to the arrest report.

The witness reported that Anthony allegedly reached inside his bag and said, “Touch me and see what happens,” according to the arrest report.

Metcalf grabbed Anthony to move him, according to a witness, and Anthony allegedly pulled out what the witness described as a black knife and “stabbed Austin once in the chest and then ran away,” the arrest report stated.

“Just doesn’t make any sense,” Metcalf’s mother, Meghan Metcalf, told Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA in emotional remarks last week. “Just because the kid was mad, my son is not here anymore, and I don’t understand it.”

Frisco Police Chief David Shilson called the incident a “senseless act of violence” in a lengthy statement last week while offering his “deepest condolences to all the families involved especially the Metcalf family.”

He also warned that false information related to the stabbing was being circulated on social media and “to only trust information that comes from official releases and verified sources.”

Shilson said police are investigating a fake account created using his name that was “perpetuating misinformation” on the incident. Police said they are pursuing felony charges.

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