Supreme Court Orders Trump Administration to Retrieve Man Who Was Mistakenly Deported
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The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador where he has been imprisoned.
The ruling requires the administration to comply with an earlier lower court order. There were no noted dissents.
Lawyers for the administration admitted that Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father of three, was deported by mistake. Nonetheless, they maintained there was nothing the administration could do to bring him back to the U.S.
Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran national who was arrested in Baltimore on March 12 shortly after leaving his job as a sheet metal worker to pick up his five-year-old son. Previously, the government alleged that Abrego Garcia was in the notorious MS-13 gang. However, in a court filing last week, lawyers for U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement said he had been mistakenly deported because of an “administrative error.”
Last week, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the administration to arrange his return.
“The record reflects that Abrego Garcia was apprehended in Maryland without legal basis … and without further process or legal justification was removed to El Salvador,” she wrote in her order.
In response, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt mocked Xinis’s ruling.
“We are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador,” she said in a statement.
In its decision on Thursday, the high court instructed Xinis to clarify her order, but otherwise upheld it.
“The district court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs,” the ruling stated. “For its part, the government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”
Hours before the Supreme Court’s ruling, Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vazquez, appeared on MSNBC and pleaded for his return.
“I want them to bring him back. I want to know when they will bring him back,” she said. “Because my kids asked, ‘When is he coming?’ I don’t have an answer.”
