Continuing a pattern of stonewalling, the Justice Department has defied a judge’s order to explain what the Trump administration has done, and plans to do, to seek the release of a Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador last month, according to court papers filed Tuesday.

In refusing to reveal much of anything about the administration’s role in improperly sending the man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, to El Salvador or its subsequent efforts to seek his freedom, department lawyers repeatedly claimed that the information constituted state secrets that needed to be protected, the papers said.

“The government responded to plaintiffs’ discovery requests by producing nothing of substance,” Abrego Garcia’s lawyers wrote Tuesday morning to Judge Paula Xinis, who is handling the case in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

In their letter, the lawyers asked Xinis to hold a hearing as early as 1 p.m. Wednesday to discuss how to proceed with what they described as the “government’s failure to comply with this court’s orders.”

— The New York Times