garcia

Judge states Trump administration has made ‘one empty threat after another’ to deport Salvadoran national to Africa.

A United States federal judge has ruled that the administration of US President Donald Trump cannot re-detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was wrongfully deported last year and who the federal government has sought to deport again.

US District Judge Paula Xinis stated on Tuesday that a 90-day detention period had passed without the administration presenting a workable plan to deport Abrego Garcia, whose lawyers say he is being punished because his wrongful detention embarrassed the government.

Xinis said that the government “made one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success”.

“From this, the court easily concludes that there is no ‘good reason to believe’ removal is likely in the reasonably foreseeable future,” he added.

The ruling is a victory for Abrego Garcia, who has been fighting his attempted deportation by US immigration authorities who have tried to send him to African nations such as Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, and Liberia. Abrego Garcia was released from an immigration detention facility in December.

His wrongful deportation to El Salvador, where he was held in a prison known for poor conditions and widespread abuse, became an early flashpoint in the Trump administration’s push to deport non-citizens from the US, often with few efforts to abide by due process requirements. The Trump administration had also accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the criminal group MS-13, without offering any evidence.

His mistaken deportation prompted widespread anger and calls for the Trump administration to bring him back to the US. After initially stating that it had no authority to do so, the Trump administration brought Abrego Garcia back to the US in June following a court order mandating his return. It has since charged him with human smuggling, an allegation that he denies.

With his six-volume magnum opus “My Struggle,” Karl Ove Knausgaard became one of Europe’s most acclaimed contemporary novelists.

At once epic and intimate in scope, the books used the raw material of Knausgaard’s life to answer questions about male identity, the obligations of fatherhood and marriage, and what it takes to become a serious artist. In his new novel, “The School of Night,” Knausgaard further explores the mysteries of artistic greatness, using as his template Christopher Marlowe’s 16th century play “Doctor Faustus.” Knausgaard sets his story in mid-1980s London, where two aspiring photographers named Kristian and Hans try to find their footing in the art world.

I spoke to the Norwegian writer about the devil, photography and Radiohead.

✍️ Author Chat

Your novel’s plot and characters are based on Christopher Marlowe’s 16th century play “Doctor Faustus,” which is about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil. Was this something you’ve been thinking about for a while?

I read Thomas Mann’s novel “Doctor Faustus” when I was 19 and it made a big impression on me. It’s been with me ever since then. The devil theme has hovered over some novels I’ve written, so it remained, and then I wanted to set this novel in London, where I now live, and where Marlowe was murdered. I wanted all of this in the background, but I didn’t know how to use it. That came during the writing.

The two young artists in “The School of Night” are photographers, an art form that has long been associated with the occult and summoning the unseen world. One thinks of the spirit photography trend of the 19th century in England.

I wrote about the first photograph in the novel, shot by Daguerre in 1848. I have it on my wall in my office. It’s a Paris street, which I find very unsettling and spooky, because even though it’s daytime there are no people on the street because the exposure was too slow to capture them. There’s just this lone figure, in the center of the frame who looks like the devil. I find it intriguing that the devil might have been present when the first photograph was taken.

Karl Ove Knausgaard, one of Europe’s most acclaimed contemporary novelists, sets his newest novel, “The School of Night,” in mid-1980s London.

(Solve Sundsbo for D2)

I think one of the reasons for the enduring appeal of the Faust legend is, if given the chance, most people would sell their souls for success, especially artists.

I think you’re right. And it is also a way of explaining something that is really mysterious, how a kind of normal, maybe even mediocre person could achieve something great overnight. When I was 19, I could have cut off my left arm to just have a book published. And when I wrote “My Struggle,” I was so frustrated in my writing, I was willing to go to extremes, to just make something happen. And then I didn’t think much about that when I wrote “The School of Night.” But it’s all kind of obvious to me afterwards that I use that feeling of doing something I really shouldn’t, and I could have stopped, but I still did it.

To your point: Kristian, your protagonist, has an artistic breakthrough when he photographs a dead cat that he has boiled. I guess my question is: A boiled cat?

Oh, that’s just due to the way I write. I never know what’s going to happen in a book. He’s starting to think about inner structures that keep up life somehow. And then, he thinks, how could he take photos of that? Well, maybe a cat. And then you have to practically get a cat. And then it’s like 25 pages of me describing how to boil a cat. I never planned it, you know.

Do you not outline your novels beforehand?

No, never, I’ve never done that. I do really try to be present and see what happens there. And then there will always be consequences of the choices you make, and that will eventually be the novel. And in this case, the character is different from me, so his choices will be different, and that creates a different trajectory, really.

Your characters are music obsessives in ways that only men in their 20s can be: curating their record collections, and so on.

When I was young, music really meant almost everything to me. When I was 15, I went to a local newspaper and asked to review records for them. And I had my own radio show. I’m not obsessed anymore, but I did see Radiohead at the O2 Arena recently. They are the last band I really wanted to see, and it was absolutely fantastic. I had tears running down my cheeks.

(This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

📰 The Week(s) in Books

George Saunders’ new novel might be the dark humor read you need right now, writes Robert Allen Papinchak.

(Los Angeles Times photo illustration; cover from Riverhead Books)

George Saunders has published a new novel called “Vigil,” and Robert Allen Papinchak is besotted by it, calling it a “virtuoso achievement, an immersive experience for the reader.”

Nathan Smith had a Zoom chat with author Martha Ackmann about her new Dolly Parton biography, “Ain’t Nobody’s Fool,” and got the lowdown on how Parton’s fixation with over-the-top wigs began. “Her promotions man happened to be dating an actress who had a big part in the television series ‘Mr. Ed,’ ” Ackmann tells Smith. “This actress took her around, showed her L.A. and they went to the Max Factor store and tried on wigs.”

In an excerpt from this new book, “Football,” Chuck Klosterman makes a case for America’s favorite sport as best viewed in the privacy of our living rooms. “It’s not just that you can see a game better when you watch it on television,” he writes. “Television is the only way you can see it at all.”

Finally, Bethanne Patrick gives us the lowdown on the must-read books of February.

📖 Bookstore Faves

Fear not, grown-ups: Our kids are not digital zombies just yet. In fact, children’s bookstores are thriving in Los Angeles. Children’s Book World is the largest independent bookstore of its kind in the city, with over 80,000 titles for sale. The store is a wonderland of printed matter for kids, with readings, book clubs and even musical performances. I spoke with the store’s manager Brien Lopez to get the lowdown on what our kids are reading.

What’s selling right now?

T.Z. Layton’s “The Academy” series, which is about a global soccer competition for tweens, is one of our best sellers. This series has lots of boys who were not avid readers becoming strong fiction readers because they are about a subject they love and they are really fun reads.

What kind of YA books are popular right now?

For our particular store we sell lots of sunshine romance particularly targeted to new teens like Lynn Painter’s books, as well as both mysteries and suspense thrillers like Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ “Inheritance Games” series. Dystopian sci fi is also popular, like Soyoung Park’s “Snowglobe” duology.

Who are the popular authors?

We just had a 2,000-person event with Dav Pilkey for his new “Dog Man” book and how he gets kids excited about books and reading just can’t be underestimated. We also had big events with beloved authors Katherine Applegate, Stuart Gibbs and Max Brallier. Middle grade fiction and graphic novels are very popular at our store.

Are kids still interested in books, despite all the distractions in their lives?

Kids definitely are interested in books if they are allowed to read about subjects they enjoy and books they love. The moment you tell a child there is a good book versus a bad book to read you have stopped that kid’s reading journey in its tracks. Let kids read the books they love and they will do it for a lifetime.

Children’s Book World in Los Angeles is located at 10580 1/2 W. Pico Blvd.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

Leading Democrats have rolled out a new and unvarnished message — that the U.S. Department of Justice cannot be trusted.

“Let’s be really clear: We can’t trust anything the DOJ does. The DOJ is corrupt. They’re corrupt on every major issue in front of this country,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said Friday at a news conference in his district.

“We cannot trust the Department of Justice. They are an illegitimate organization right now under the leadership of [Atty. Gen.] Pam Bondi and the direction of Donald Trump,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said during his own news conference in Washington, D.C.

The remarks — which hold profound implications in a two-party democracy meant to be protected and served by a nonpartisan justice system, and which a White House spokesperson called “shameful” — followed a week of equally stunning actions by the Justice Department, where President Trump has installed staunch loyalists, including Bondi, to high-ranking positions.

In recent days, the Justice Department has resisted launching civil rights investigations into two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents. It has since reversed course and launched such an investigation into the second of those incidents, in which 37-year-old Alex Pretti was shot while surrounded by agents, on the ground and disarmed, but has held firm in its decision not to investigate the earlier shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good, who was shot while trying to drive away from a tense exchange with agents.

On Wednesday, the FBI raided and seized voter ballots and other information from the election headquarters of Fulton County, Ga., long a target of Trump’s baseless and disproven claims that widespread voter fraud helped Democrats steal the 2020 election. Bondi was an early backer of those baseless claims, as were other Justice Department appointees.

On Friday, federal agents arrested former CNN anchor Don Lemon and other journalists after their coverage of a protest at a conservative church in Minneapolis. Justice Department officials rejected the defense that Lemon and the other journalists were exercising their 1st Amendment rights as journalists, and accused them of violating the rights of churchgoers.

Also Friday, Justice Department officials released more documents from the Epstein files — a trove of records related to the sexual abuse of minors by the late, disgraced billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein. Democrats argued that the release was still not complete, in violation of a law passed by Congress mandating that they be made public.

In a statement to The Times, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly dismissed Jeffries’ and Garcia’s remarks as “shameful comments by Democrats who cheered on Joe Biden’s weaponization of the Department of Justice against his political enemies, including President Trump,” and said Trump, Bondi and other administration officials “have quickly Made America Safe Again by taking violent criminals off the streets, cracking down on fraud, holding bad actors accountable, and more.”

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment, but officials there have broadly defended the department’s actions as not only justified but necessary for ensuring the rule of law and holding alleged criminals to account.

Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, said both the actions of the Justice Department and the latest statements from Democrats ratcheted up the stakes in the nation’s already tense political standoff — as institutions such as the Justice Department “need to be trusted in the long term” for American democracy to be successful.

“Trust goes up and down in the people in institutions over history, but there’s been a baseline level of support for our Constitution, the way our government is built, and the seal on the building — even if people didn’t trust who was in that building,” Kousser said. “What we may be risking as a country is losing the trust in the building itself, if people think that the might of the federal government is being used to pursue a narrow agenda of one party or one leader.”

Jeffries’ assertion that the Justice Department can’t be trusted came as he denounced Lemon’s arrest. Jeffries said there was “zero basis to arrest” Lemon, and that the arrest was an attempt by the Trump administration to weaponize government against people they disagree with.

Jeffries added that distrust in the federal agency is one of the reasons why House Democrats are pushing for legislative action to require independent investigations by local and state law enforcement in cases when federal agents engage in violent incidents and are accused of wrongdoing — such as the shootings in Minneapolis.

Other leading Democrats have also slammed the Justice Department over the journalists’ arrests.

“The American people deserve answers as to why Trump’s lawless Justice Department is arresting journalists for simply doing their jobs,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.).

“The arrest of journalists for covering a protest is a grave attack on the 1st Amendment and freedom of the press,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). “And proof the Trump administration is not de-escalating.”

Garcia’s comments came in a wide-ranging news conference at which he also discussed taking on a leading role in impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has been overseeing the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, including through the deployment of Immigration and Custom Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents to Minneapolis, Los Angeles and other major cities.

Garcia denounced the Trump administration’s handling of the Good and Pretti shootings, arguing that independent investigations were needed — as he said were conducted after police shootings in Long Beach when he was mayor there.

“They should bring in either a special counsel [or] some type of special master to oversee an independent investigation,” he said.

He said that was especially necessary given the fact that Noem and other administration officials immediately bad-mouthed Good and Pretti as violent actors threatening agents before any of the facts were gathered — and in direct contradiction to video evidence from the scenes.

“What happened to Renee Good and Alex Pretti was murder by our own government, and our committee is working right now on a major report on both of those incidents so that those that are responsible are held accountable,” Garcia said.

He also called Lemon’s arrest “horrifying,” saying Lemon was “out there reporting” and is now being “essentially attacked” by the Justice Department. “The arrest of Don Lemon might be the single largest attack on the free press and the 1st Amendment in the modern era.”

Garcia noted that the Justice Department had first shopped Lemon’s arrest around to multiple judges, who denied issuing a warrant for his arrest. Administration officials said a federal grand jury handed down an indictment for the journalist, but Garcia suggested the indictment was fraudulently obtained based on the government putting forward information “we cannot trust.”

Decisions around the two Minneapolis shootings and the arrest of the journalists would have passed through the office of Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Dhillon did not respond to a request for comment Friday. However, she has broadly defended her office’s actions online. For days before Lemon’s arrest, she had slammed his actions, writing on X that she and Bondi “will not tolerate harassment of Americans at worship — especially from agitators posing as ‘journalists.’”

Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche — a former personal attorney to Trump — has broadly defended the department’s actions in Minneapolis, where he said a civil rights investigation into Good’s shooting was unwarranted, and on the Epstein files, which he said have been released in accordance with the law and Trump’s own demands for transparency.

The latter was also something Garcia took issue with Friday, slamming the Justice Department for continuing to withhold some of the files.

“Donald Trump and the Department of Justice just made it clear right now that they intend to withhold approximately 50% or half of the Epstein files while claiming to have fully complied with the law. This is outrageous and incredibly concerning,” Garcia said.

He said his committee subpoenaed all of the files over the summer, and Bondi has yet to comply with that subpoena in violation of the law.

Previously released Epstein records included allegations that Trump was involved in Epstein’s schemes to abuse young women and girls, which Trump — once a friend of Epstein’s — has strenuously denied.

The Justice Department has also taken the unusual step of defending the president in the matter directly, including by releasing a statement last month that the released documents “contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump.”

“To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,” the department’s statement said.

Kousser, the politics professor, noted that this is not the first time that concerns about partisanship within the Justice Department have been voiced. He said similar concerns were raised by many Republicans when the Justice Department was prosecuting Trump during the Biden administration.

Such arguments raise serious alarms, he said, regardless of which way they are directed politically.

“If people feel like the Justice Department is only doing the bidding of whoever won the last election, that moves it from a law enforcement body to a political operation in the eyes of average Americans,” he said. “And that would be a huge loss for our democracy.”