A federal judge in Maryland declined on Tuesday to lift her order required by the Trump government to facilitate the return of a man from Venezuela, whom the authorities departed to El Salvador almost two months ago in violation of a legal settlement.

US Regional Judge Stephanie Gallagher rejected the government’s arguments that the return of a man – a 20 -year -old man specified in court documents only as “Cristian” – was unnecessary because an internal security ministry service decided last week that it would not meet anyway.

The Trump government has also argued that it no longer has the power to bring the man back because he is under the surveillance of a foreign state – the same attitude he adopted in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadorian national, who was also deported in violation of a court ruling.

The Venezuelan asylum application was pending when he was deported in March to an infamous prison in El Salvador under the law on foreign enemies, along with 137 other Venezuelans whom the Trump government accused of being members of the Tren de Aragu gang.

Gallagher, in a decision last month, concluded that Cristian should have been protected from deportation as a member of the category in a legal settlement that has been overseen since last year. Under this agreement, the government agreed to allow some immigrants who arrived in the United States as unaccompanied minors to remain in the country as they claim asylum.

The judge ordered the government to take immediate action to facilitate Cristian’s return, including the submission of “a request … to the El Salvador government to release it under US surveillance to transfer it to the United States”.

The Ministry of Justice has not stated whether officials have made efforts to comply with that mandate.

“Cristian is currently under the custody of a foreign state,” justice ministry lawyer Richard Ingebretsen wrote in a court law on Monday. The US government “has no power to order its return”.