Trump administration asks Supreme Court to block return of wrongly deported Maryland man
Shreedhar Rathi | Apr 08, 2025, 00:02 IST
( Image credit : AP )
The Trump administration is urgently appealing to the Supreme Court to halt the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, mistakenly deported to El Salvador despite his protected legal status. Lower courts have ordered his return, criticizing the government's actions as a violation of due process. The administration argues that court intervention infringes on executive authority in foreign relations.
The Trump administration is seeking emergency intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador despite holding protected legal status.
The government deported Abrego Garcia in March following what officials later admitted was an "administrative error." He was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and sent to El Salvador, where he is currently being held at the country’s notorious CECOT mega-prison.
In a filing to the high court Monday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the judiciary had overstepped its authority by ordering the executive branch to conduct international negotiations. “The Constitution charges the President, not federal district courts, with the conduct of foreign diplomacy,” Sauer wrote. He called the court-imposed deadline “absurdly compressed” and said it “vastly complicates the give-and-take of foreign-relations negotiations.”
Abrego Garcia, 29, fled gang violence in El Salvador and entered the United States in 2011 at the age of 16. He has lived in Maryland for over a decade, is married to a U.S. citizen, and is the father of a five-year-old child. His attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said the government’s claim that his client is a member of MS-13 is unfounded.
“He is not a gang member,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “That is a question for an immigration judge, not a justification for violating his due process rights.”
Earlier on Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld a lower court’s order requiring the federal government to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. by 11:59 p.m. ET. The panel of judges unanimously rejected the administration’s emergency request to halt the 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,” the judges wrote in a sharply worded opinion. “The Government's contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene, are unconscionable.”
Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, was particularly critical of the government’s inaction after acknowledging the deportation was a mistake.
“There is no question that the government screwed up here,” Wilkinson wrote. “If it is truly a mistake, one would also expect the government to do what it can to rectify it. But, to the best of my knowledge, the government has not made the attempt here.”
In a concurring opinion, Judges Robert King and Stephanie Thacker pointed out that the administration had failed to present any evidence that Abrego Garcia had gang ties.
“If the government believed he was a prominent member of MS-13, it had ample opportunity to prove it,” they wrote. “It has not even bothered to try.”
The Trump administration now awaits a decision from the Supreme Court. If the justices decline to intervene, the government remains under court order to return Abrego Garcia by midnight Monday.
The government deported Abrego Garcia in March following what officials later admitted was an "administrative error." He was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and sent to El Salvador, where he is currently being held at the country’s notorious CECOT mega-prison.
In a filing to the high court Monday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the judiciary had overstepped its authority by ordering the executive branch to conduct international negotiations. “The Constitution charges the President, not federal district courts, with the conduct of foreign diplomacy,” Sauer wrote. He called the court-imposed deadline “absurdly compressed” and said it “vastly complicates the give-and-take of foreign-relations negotiations.”
Abrego Garcia, 29, fled gang violence in El Salvador and entered the United States in 2011 at the age of 16. He has lived in Maryland for over a decade, is married to a U.S. citizen, and is the father of a five-year-old child. His attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said the government’s claim that his client is a member of MS-13 is unfounded.
“He is not a gang member,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “That is a question for an immigration judge, not a justification for violating his due process rights.”
Earlier on Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit upheld a lower court’s order requiring the federal government to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. by 11:59 p.m. ET. The panel of judges unanimously rejected the administration’s emergency request to halt the 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,” the judges wrote in a sharply worded opinion. “The Government's contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene, are unconscionable.”
Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, was particularly critical of the government’s inaction after acknowledging the deportation was a mistake.
“There is no question that the government screwed up here,” Wilkinson wrote. “If it is truly a mistake, one would also expect the government to do what it can to rectify it. But, to the best of my knowledge, the government has not made the attempt here.”
In a concurring opinion, Judges Robert King and Stephanie Thacker pointed out that the administration had failed to present any evidence that Abrego Garcia had gang ties.
“If the government believed he was a prominent member of MS-13, it had ample opportunity to prove it,” they wrote. “It has not even bothered to try.”
The Trump administration now awaits a decision from the Supreme Court. If the justices decline to intervene, the government remains under court order to return Abrego Garcia by midnight Monday.