The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to block a U.S. District Court judge’s order requiring the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador last month.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis set a deadline of 11:59 ET on Monday for the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia to U.S. soil. On Monday, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit unanimously rejected the Justice Department’s request that Xinis’ order be paused, prompting the Trump administration to appeal to the Supreme Court, The New York Times reported.
Abrego Garcia, 29, whom the Department of Justice charged with illegally residing in the United States, was sent to an infamous prison in his home country of El Salvador through an “administrative error.” The Salvadoran man, a suspected MS-13 member, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was ordered to be deported by an immigration judge in 2019, but the judge also stipulated that he could not be sent back to El Salvador over concerns that he would face persecution or torture. Abrego Garcia, who has lived in the United States since 2011 and is married to an American, was arrested by federal agents on March 12 and flown to El Salvador a few days later.
In her order, Judge Xinis wrote that the federal government arrested the Salvadoran “without any lawful authority” and handed him over to “his persecutors.”
Solicitor General D. John Sauer called Xinis’ order “remarkable” in a court filing to the Supreme Court, CNN reported.
“The Constitution charges the president, not federal district courts, with the conduct of foreign diplomacy and protecting the nation against foreign terrorists, including by effectuating their removal,” Sauer wrote.
He added, “While the United States concedes that removal to El Salvador was an administrative error … that does not license district courts to seize control over foreign relations, treat the executive branch as a subordinate diplomat, and demand that the United States let a member of a foreign terrorist organization into America tonight.”
Sauer then warned that if Xinis’ order is allowed to stand, it would completely reshape immigration law enforcement.
“If this precedent stands, other district courts could order the United States to successfully negotiate the return of other removed aliens anywhere in the world by close of business,” he wrote, according to The New York Times. “Under that logic, district courts would effectively have extraterritorial jurisdiction over the United States’ diplomatic relations with the whole world.”
The Trump administration maintains that Abrego Garcia is a dangerous gang member and alleges that he was involved in human trafficking.
