The US Supreme Court orders the Trump administration to assist in the repatriation of a Salvadoran man who was wrongfully deported

President Donald Trump’s administration was ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to make it easier for a Salvadoran man who the government has admitted was mistakenly deported to El Salvador to return to the United States.

On April 4, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s repatriation. The Justice Department sought the justices to overturn this order, which led to the court’s ruling. In response to a lawsuit brought by Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant who had been in Maryland since 2019 and had a work permit, and his family contesting the validity of his deportation, the judge granted the ruling.

According to the court’s unsigned ruling, the judge’s order “properly requires the government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”

In the meanwhile, the court instructed the administration to “be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”

The court’s decision was praised by Abrego Garcia’s attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, who said “the rule of law prevailed.”

“The district judge’s order that the government must bring Kilmar home was upheld by the Supreme Court,” Sandoval-Moshenberg stated. “Now they need to stop wasting time and get moving.”

The court sided with Abrego Garcia, but ordered Xinis to explain that he must “effectuate” his return “with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.” ” “That requirement was ambiguous and might go beyond the judge’s jurisdiction,” the court stated.
According to a Justice Department official, the court’s decision acknowledged “the exclusive prerogative of the president to conduct foreign affairs.”

“By directly noting the deference owed to the Executive Branch, this ruling once again illustrates that activist judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of the president’s authority to conduct foreign policy,” stated a spokeswoman.

On March 12, Abrego Garcia was intercepted and taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, who also interrogated him over his suspected gang affiliation. He was deported on March 15 along with three other suspected Venezuelan gang members on a high-profile deportation trip to El Salvador.

Justice Department attorneys had argued in a Supreme Court brief that the judge’s order, which required the Trump administration to “effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return, had violated the U.S. Constitution’s separation of powers between the executive and judicial branches by unlawfully interfering with presidential authority over foreign policy.

“The United States does not control the sovereign nation of El Salvador, nor can it compel El Salvador to follow a federal judge’s bidding,” lawyers for the Justice Department argued.

Under a contract in which the United States is paying President Nayib Bukele’s government $6 million, the Trump administration deported more than 200 individuals to El Salvador on March 15 and placed them in the country’s enormous anti-terrorism jail.

‘NO BASIS IN LAW’

There is a conservative majority of 6-3 in the Supreme Court. Its three liberal justices said in a statement Thursday that they would have rejected the administration’s request outright, but they agreed with the court’s ruling.

“As of right now, the government has not provided any legal justification for Abrego Garcia’s unconditional arrest, deportation to El Salvador, or imprisonment in a Salvadoran jail. Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor stated in the statement, “Neither could it.”

Sotomayor went on to say that the government had asked for “an order from this court permitting it to leave Abrego Garcia, a husband and father without a criminal record, in a Salvadoran prison for no reason recognized by the law.”

In addition to parenting his wife’s two children from a previous relationship, Abrego Garcia is married to an American citizen and has a child of his own. Lawyers for Abrego Garcia have refuted the Justice Department’s claim that he is a member of the criminal organization MS-13, saying he has never been charged with or found guilty of any crime.

In an April 7 Supreme Court petition, the Justice Department claimed that although Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador was the result of “administrative error,” his actual removal from the United States “was not error.” Department lawyers noted that the removal of him expressly to El Salvador in defiance of the deportation protection order was a mistake.

Abrego Garcia was granted refuge from deportation to El Salvador in 2019 after an immigration judge in the United States found that he would be persecuted by gangs in his own country if he were sent back.

After Trump’s government branded MS-13 a foreign terrorist organization, Abrego Garcia, an alleged member of the group, is no longer eligible for such protection, according to Justice Department attorneys.

The 2019 order that forbade Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador remained in effect, according to Xinis’ decision. She concluded that his dismissal was illegal under federal immigration law and probably in violation of the procedural rights protected by the U.S. Constitution.

According to Xinis’s written ruling, Abrego Garcia’s incarceration “appears wholly lawless,” and “there were no legal grounds whatsoever for his arrest, detention or removal.”

On April 7, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, denied the administration’s motion to halt the judge’s order.

Trump’s administration was ordered to rehire thousands of sacked employees by a judge, but the Supreme Court rejected that decision on Tuesday. With some restrictions, it permitted Trump to use a 1798 statute that has traditionally only been used during times of war to pursue the deportations of suspected Venezuelan gang members on Monday. On April 4, the court allowed Trump’s administration to continue cutting teacher training funds by millions of dollars as part of his campaign to suppress efforts for diversity, equity, and inclusion.