‘Trump admin broke legally binding settlement’: Judge orders return of another man improperly deported to El Salvador  | World News

Cristian entered the United States in December 2022, alone and seeking refuge. His asylum case was still pending when he was abruptly deported in March 2025 as part of mass removal operation. Hundreds of migrants, including Cristian and others like him, were reportedly loaded onto military-style planes on March 15 and flown to El Salvador, where they were detained at the notorious Cecot prison, a sprawling, maximum-security facility known for alleged human rights abuses.

Kilmar Garcia

Gallagher’s decision is the second time in as many months that the Trump administration has been chastised in this way. The Supreme Court previously affirmed a lower court’s ruling directing the government to repatriate Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who had been living in Maryland under court protection since 2019, in a case that was closely related. The Court declared Garcia’s deportation, to El Salvador as well, to be “illegal” because it went against a permanent immigration court order that forbade his removal.

Despite the Supreme Court’s unambiguous directive, the Trump administration has refused to take concrete steps to bring Garcia back. Officials have argued that the U.S. lacks the legal authority to compel El Salvador to release him or send him back. They point to diplomatic overtures made by the State Department, which they say constitute sufficient compliance.

In her most recent decision, Judge Gallagher dismissed those arguments, stating that the administration’s stance was “inadequate” and “in tension with both the letter and the spirit of prior court orders.” She specifically mentioned the Abrego Garcia case as precedent, pointing out that the United States has a moral and legal duty to stop illegal deportations.

On Cristian’s removal, she wrote that it was “a direct violation of a settlement agreement freely entered into by the United States government.” She ordered the administration to “take all reasonable and available steps to secure Cristian’s return to U.S. soil.”

Similarities and differences

The similarities between the two cases are striking. Both men were deported despite clear legal protections. Both were sent to a country with no prior ties. And both are now being held in a prison widely condemned by human rights groups for its inhumane conditions. But one key difference, U.S. officials say, is that Cristian had a drug conviction on his record, an argument used to justify his deportation.

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official Robert Cerna, Cristian was convicted of cocaine possession in Texas earlier this year and detained shortly thereafter, in January 2025, during the final days of the Biden administration. ICE says that conviction makes Cristian removable under immigration law. But Gallagher emphasized that the conviction did not nullify the protections guaranteed to him under the unaccompanied minor asylum settlement. In other words, the law still required that his asylum claim be resolved before any deportation could occur.

Criticism

The deportations have drawn sharp criticism from immigrant rights groups and legal advocates, who accuse the administration of weaponizing bureaucratic ambiguity and misrepresenting judicial orders.

“Facilitating return doesn’t mean shrugging and blaming El Salvador,” said Maria Sandoval, a lawyer with the ACLU who helped negotiate the original unaccompanied minor settlement. “It means acting in good faith to repair what was broken—especially when the government is responsible for the harm.”

In the case of Garcia, the administration has gone further, offering what critics call a willfully distorted interpretation of the law. During an Oval Office meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele earlier this year, Trump reportedly deferred to senior officials who claimed the Supreme Court’s ruling merely allowed the U.S. to receive Garcia if El Salvador chose to send him back—not that it required the U.S. to request his return.

Trump’s longtime policy aide Stephen Miller, speaking after the meeting, said, “The ruling solely stated that if this individual at El Salvador’s sole discretion was sent back to our country, we could deport him a second time.” His statement contradicted the actual ruling, which upheld the lower court’s explicit directive that the government must facilitate Garcia’s return.

Even Attorney General Pam Bondi offered a strained reading of the order. “That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him,” she said. “The Supreme Court ruled that if El Salvador wants to return him, we would ‘facilitate’ it, meaning provide a plane.”

But advocates say such interpretations ignore the reality that the U.S. is not a passive actor. The federal government has deep financial and political leverage over El Salvador, particularly as it helps fund Cecot prison and other Salvadoran security initiatives. “We are paying for the plane, the prison, and the policies—and yet we claim we’re powerless,” said Sandoval. “That’s not legal reasoning. That’s abdication.”

As of this week, both Garcia and Cristian remain in custody at Cecot. Neither has access to U.S. legal counsel. Neither has received any indication that they will be returned.

Judge Gallagher’s order gives the Trump administration until May 10 to file a status report detailing the steps taken to comply.

In the meantime, immigration advocates fear that Cristian’s case may only be the beginning of a broader pattern. “This isn’t just about one or two men,” said Raquel Velasquez of the Immigrant Justice Collective. “This is about whether the rule of law means anything when it comes to immigrants—and whether court orders are treated as binding, or optional.”

With the administration signaling no change in course, the stage is set for further legal battles—and for the growing question of whether the courts can check an immigration enforcement system increasingly operating on its own terms.