I posted three days ago about how Trump faced his first major test before the US Supreme Court about the extent of his powers in a case involving a man who was sent illegally to a prison in El Salvador.
The Supreme Court issued a ruling today that Trump’s action has to be reversed.
The US supreme court upheld on Thursday a judge’s order requiring Donald Trump’s administration to facilitate the return to the United States of a Salvadoran man who the government has acknowledged was deported in error to El Salvador.
US district judge Paula Xinis last week issued an order that the administration “facilitate and effectuate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, in response to a lawsuit filed by the man and his family challenging the legality of his deportation.
The supreme court, in an unsigned decision, said that the judge’s 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”.
…Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was living in Maryland and has had a work permit since 2019, was stopped and detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was deported on 15 March on one of three high-profile deportation flights to El Salvador that also included alleged Venezuelan gang members.
…Abrego Garcia is married to a US citizen with whom he is raising a US citizen child in addition to his wife’s two children from a prior relationship. He had never been charged with or convicted of any crime, according to Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, who have denied the justice department’s allegation that he is a member of the criminal gang MS-13.
The court asked the lower court judge to clarify what she meant by ordering the administration of ‘effectuate’ Abrego Garcia’s return.
The administration had absurdly argued that now that he was in El Salvador, there was nothing they could do to get him back.
Justice Department officials argued that it was “impossible” for them to comply with the order, in part because Abrego Garcia, who was born in El Salvador, is now in the custody of that country. They also argued that Xinis’ directive violated the Constitution by intruding on the president’s powers over foreign relations and national security.
So Trump, who acts like he rules the world and has no hesitation in threatening any other country to obey his will by imposing massive tariffs and even threatening to invade, is suddenly helpless before a small country that is very friendly to the US and whose president Nayib Bukele is due to visit the White House on Monday.
But this is at least a hopeful sign that there are limits to what this Trump-friendly court will do to enable his actions.
But I don’t expect Trump to give in easily. He will have his lawyers quibble about what the judge can force the administration to do to carry out her ruling,
The controlling opinion leaves just enough wiggle room to be annoying, but it’s pretty good. Sotomayor wrote a great minority concurrence. I wish they would’ve let her write the whole thing.
So I guess at least two of the gang of six are not entirely shameless. That’s what I was hoping for and better than I’d feared.
The bit that Mano quoted said that the court issued “an unsigned decision.” Do we know who the yes votes came from?
All the reporting I’ve read is that it was unanimous. I think that’s generally the case in an unsigned decision with no dissent.
I did a quick search trying to answer my own question, and I found this from NBC news which says that there were no dissenting votes.
It also says,
Could Roberts have granted the earlier stay precisely so that that would be the case?
I suspect one of the things the conservative justices objected to was the deadline.
did those craven pukes actually show the tiniest shred of concern for ethics? i’m shocked. and unsurprised they half-assed it.
Your headline is incorrect. This from your conclusion is more correct:
> He will have his lawyers quibble about what the judge can force the administration to do to carry out her ruling,
SCOTUS is requiring the executive branch to “facilitate” Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s release, but declined to require it to “effectuate” his release, saying that might unconstitutionally interfere into foreign policy which is constitutionally Trump’s to run during his term.
Neither facilitate nor effectuate have been clearly defined for this particular context, and therefore Trump has a good argument that SCOTUS does not require T47 to secure Abrego Garcia’s release, only do things that make such a release more likely. Better legal minds than mine are on this, and the particular line that SCOTUS drew in the majority opinion is very forgiving of an administration that doesn’t get Abrego Garcia back. Thus the headline that SCOTUS “must return” him is (legally speaking) inaccurate.
As a PR matter, it might be embarrassing for Trump to say that he tried to persuade El Salvador but couldn’t reach a deal. But right now, KAG’s freedom essentially rests on how much Trump might feel embarrassed if he is seen to fail vs. how much he might feel clever if he says he fails but gets what he wants (KAG staying in ES). If he thinks that his base understands he’s not failing so much as refusing to try in ways that stick a thumb in the eye of the courts, then embarrassment is unlikely to be persuasive and KAG is likely fucked.
At least the trial judge is keeping the pressure up to the maximum degree possible. But the DOJ is being so obstinate, I wouldn’t be surprised if it has to be appealed again.
Im quite surprised that Alito and Thomas (And even Gorsuch and Roberts ) didnt dissent. if i remember correctly they feel that the state should still execute people , even if subsequent evidence shows that the convictions were wrongfully obtained or even if new evidence was now available
Looks like the administration is already dragging their feet on getting Garcia freed.
Just like their tariffs , i think the names of folks being deported or being rounded up seems to be sourced from internet searches or chatgpt -- for e.g. -- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/11/dhs-british-tattoo-identify-alleged-gang-venezuela
ABC news: ‘Nothing has been done’: Judge slams DOJ in case of wrongly deported man
I don’t think the judge really expected him returned, the government had less the one day between the Supreme court ruling and this hearing. She was angry that the DOJ sent another lawyer that didn’t know anything. The lawyer who is supposed to be representing the government had no information about Abrego Garcia or what (if anything) the government had done to find him or secure his return.
I get the feeling that the Trump administration will just stall and this case will end up back at the Supreme court in a while. It will be interesting to see what the court does then. I get the feeling that part of the reason the right wing made this a 9-0 case is that they are hoping the Trump administration quietly brings him back and the whole thing can be swept under the rug. Even the radical right wingers don’t want to be treading on the ground of Presidential authority in international affairs. It’s legally poorly defined and it’s obvious that carving a loophole that lets the President break the law by moving it outside the US is just terrible.
The judge is no fool. She didn’t expect him returned today. But in the SCOTUS order, it was explicitly said that the government should be prepared to tell her what they were doing to facilitate his release, and what they planned to do in the future. THAT doesn’t seem like too much to ask, even on short notice. If they keep stalling, I agree there will probably be contempt charges, followed by it going right back to the 6 weasels that put out the order in the first place (the 3 liberal justices were having none of it).
Trump already has the idea in his head that being President means there can, by definition, be no law against anything he does. And my worry is, even if the courts decided that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia must be brought home on the next flight, Trump would simply refuse to comply with the court order.