SCOTUS Orders Trump Administration to “Facilitate” Return of Wrongly Deported Man
In a unanimous emergency ruling Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland man wrongfully deported to a hard labor prison in El Salvador.
Abrego García, a legal Maryland resident working as a sheet metal apprentice, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement March 12 and deported to El Salvador. The Trump administration admitted in a court filing that his arrest and deportation was an “administrative error.” He has never been charged with a crime in the U.S., El Salvador or any other country.
But the Trump administration fought orders from a district court and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to bring García home and asked SCOTUS to weigh in on the matter. Justice Sonia Sotomayer, who wrote the ruling for the nation’s highest Court, affirmed the district court’s original order that “properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego García’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.”
The SCOTUS order also directs U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis, an Obama appointee, to expand on her original order, which required the administration “effectuate” Abrego García’s return. Sotomayor wrote that the “intended scope of the term ‘effectuate’” in Xinis’ original order might have exceeded her authority.
In response to SCOTUS’ order, Xinis ordered the Trump administration Friday to lay out specific steps for bringing Abrego García back to the U.S. as soon as possible.
Update, 04/11, 1 p.m. : The U.S. Department of Justice says it can’t comply with Xinis’ order because the deadline she set is “impractical.”