Supreme Court says government should seek return of wrongly deported Maryland man
The justices gave a partial win to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to a Salvadoran prison because of what the government conceded was an 'administrative error.'
In an unsigned order, the high court said it agreed for the most part with U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who ruled for him.
Her '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.'
That would include an opportunity for him and his lawyer to show that he was not a gang member and should not be deported.
But the court added that the judge's demand the government 'effectuate' his return 'is unclear and may exceed the district court's authority. ... The district court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.'
None of the nine justices dissented, although the court's three liberals said the government's appeal should have been denied entirely.
Trump's lawyers agreed Abrego Garcia was wrongly deported on March 15 to the Terrorism Confinement Center, Salvador's huge maximum security prison.
The Maryland man was arrested by federal agents on March 12 on the grounds that he had been identified six years earlier as a member of the MS-13 gang, which he denied.
An immigration judge said in 2019 he could be 'removed' or deported, but he could not be sent to his native El Salvador because he could face gang persecution there.
But when the Trump administration began its roundup of alleged members of foreign criminal gangs, Abrego Garcia was detained in Texas with other migrants facing deportation and then wrongly put on to a plane to El Salvador.
Since then, his wife and her lawyer have been trying desperately to win his return. They said he has no criminal record, is a father of three children and was employed as a sheet metal worker in Baltimore.
But Trump administration insisted it has no duty and no intent to demand his return.
Their lawyers have also argued that judges had no authority to intervene.
'The Constitution charges the President, not federal district courts, with the conduct of foreign diplomacy and protecting the Nation against foreign terrorists,' Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer told the Supreme Court in an appeal file on Monday.
Last week, Xinis ordered the government to 'facilitate and effectuate' Abrego Garcia's return by Monday at midnight.
The administration appealed, but the 4th Circuit Court upheld her order.
'The United States government has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process,' wrote Judge Stephanie Thacker, an Obama appointee. She said it was 'unconscionable' for the government to argue that the 'courts are powerless to intervene.'
But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. paused the judge's order while the justices decided how to rule.
In his appeal on behalf of the Trump administration, Sauer said the judge had ordered 'unprecedented relief: dictating to the United States that it must not only negotiate with a foreign country to return an enemy alien on foreign soil.'
The administration says the native of El Salvador entered this country illegally in 2011 and was arrested in 2019 and held after he was identified 'as a ranking member of the deadly MS-13 gang.'
He had a hearing before an immigration judge who agreed the 'evidence show[ed] that [Abrego Garcia] is a verified member of MS-13.'
The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed that conclusion. But in a subsequent hearing, an immigration judge decided he should not be removed to El Salvador because he could face gang persecution.
Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, says her husband came to this country at age 16 to escape the gangs in El Salvador.
'My husband, Kilmar, was abducted by the U.S. government,' she told reporters at a rally on Friday. 'In the blink of an eye, our three children lost their father, and I lost the love of my life.'
The judges who ruled on the case said the government did not show proof that Abrego Garcia had been gang member.
'The government's 'evidence' was thin, to say the least,' Thacker said. It was based on him 'wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie' and a 'vague and uncorroborated allegation from a confidential informant claiming he belonged to MS-13's Western clique in New York — a place he has never lived.'
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