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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at an election night watch party, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A Justice Department lawyer with 15 years of experience at the DOJ has been suspended by the Trump administration after admitting in court that the president mistakenly shipped off a protected Maryland resident to a prison in El Salvador as part of his deportations of Venezuelan migrants under an 18th-century wartime authority, which have since been blocked by a federal judge.
Erez Reuveni, the acting deputy director for the Office of Immigration Litigation, was reportedly told by DOJ brass that he’d be placed on paid leave indefinitely for the comments he made Friday during a court hearing before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis.
“The facts are conceded,” Reuveni confessed during the hearing, which centered around the deportation of protected Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia. “Mr. Abrego Garcia should not have been removed,” Reuveni said.
According to the DOJ, Reuveni was suspended after the hearing for failing to “follow a directive” from his superiors. It’s unclear exactly when he was shelved, with multiple news outlets reporting his punishment over the weekend.
“At my direction, every Department of Justice attorney is required to zealously advocate on behalf of the United States,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a statement Saturday first reported by The New York Times on Reuveni’s suspension. “Any attorney who fails to abide by this direction will face consequences,” Bondi said.
It was Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche who gave Reuveni his temporary packing papers less than 24 hours after Friday’s court hearing, according to The Times. The 15-year vet was reportedly accused of “engaging in conduct prejudicial to your client” and access to his work email was cut. The Times says it’s unclear how long Reuveni’s suspension is scheduled to last or whether he will face further disciplinary action.
More from Law&Crime: ‘Pretty sketchy looking’: Judge takes DOJ lawyer to the woodshed over Trump’s mass deportations and whether federal court orders are being ignored
Judge Xinis on Friday granted a preliminary injunction and gave the DOJ just over three days to facilitate bringing Abrego Garcia back to the country, referring to his March 15 deportation as “an illegal act.” The 29-year-old was sent to El Salvador in error as part of President Trump’s proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to rush through mass deportations without providing due process to those being flown out of the country, often not to their country of origin. Abrego Garcia was in the country with protected legal status at the time of his deportation. His wife and 5-year-old child are U.S. citizens. The DOJ confessed to the lower court on Friday that his deportation was an “administrative error.”
On Sunday, Xinis issued a 22-page opinion saying she would not back off from forcing the Department of Homeland Security and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to return Garcia after the DOJ filed an emergency motion to stay Xinis’ preliminary injunction on Saturday with the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and lower court, “given the urgency of harms to the government,” the DOJ filings said. They called Xinis’ order “indefensible” and impossible to carry out on account of where he’s being held.
Xinis noted Sunday how the U.S. government and administration officials have repeatedly claimed “without any evidence” that Abrego Garcia is a member of the gang MS-13. Xinis said that the DOJ has failed to prove why her order fails in the eyes of the law, so she had no other choice than to grant “the narrowest, daresay only, relief warranted: to order that Defendants return Abrego Garcia to the United States.” It was unclear Sunday what Abrego Garcia’s custody status was in El Salvador.
“In the end, Defendants’ redressability argument rings hollow,” Xinis concluded. “As their counsel suggested at the hearing, this is not about Defendants’ inability to return Abrego Garcia, but their lack of desire.”
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