On Thursday (April 10), the Supreme Court upheld the decision of a lower court that the administration of President Donald Trump must “facilitate and effectuate the return” of Kilmer Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and deported to a prison in El Salvador. “The 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,” the Supreme Court’s decision said. “The intended scope of the term ‘effectuate’ in the district court’s order is, however, unclear, and may exceed the district court’s authority.”
The vote was 9-0 in the ruling, a direct rebuke of the agenda of President Donald Trump to forcibly expel all purported gang members from the United States. While the vote was unanimous, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Justice Elena Kagan blasted the government in a statement. “To this day,” Justice Sotomayor wrote, “the government has cited no basis in law for Abrego Garcia’s warrantless arrest, his removal to El Salvador or his confinement in a Salvadoran prison. Nor could it.” The statement then urged District Court Judge Paula Xunis, who made the initial decision, to “continue to ensure that the government lives up to its obligations to follow the law.”
Abrego Garcia, a father of three, has been accused of being a member of the notorious street gang MS-13, which was recently named as a terror organization. “The ‘evidence’ against Abrego Garcia consisted of nothing more than his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie,” wrote Judge Xunis in her initial order, “and a vague, uncorroborated allegation from a confidential informant claiming he belonged to MS-13’s ‘Western’ clique in New York — a place he has never lived.”
“The rule of law won today,” said Andrew J. Rossman, a lawyer for Abrego Garcia, after the ruling. “Time to bring him home.” D. John Sauer, the U.S. Solicitor General, argued that the decision was to “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.” Abrego Garcia’s lawyers refuted the claim. “Abrego Garcia has lived freely in the United States for years, yet has never been charged for a crime,” they wrote. “The government’s contention that he has suddenly morphed into a dangerous threat to the republic is not credible.”