The Supreme Court yesterday upheld a lower court order that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was forcibly and wrongly deported to El Salvador, where he is in a "torture" prison. The decision also directed a Maryland federal district court judge to clarify his order last week that the administration “effectuate” the return of Abrego Garcia. Via CNBC:
The decision also directed the Trump administration, who accuses Abrego Garcia of being a gang member, to prepare “to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps” related to his possible return. Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Andrew Rossman, in an email to NBC News, wrote, “The rule of law won today.” “Time to bring him home,” Rossman wrote.
The Trump administration had opposed the order to return the El Salvador native, who is married and has three children with special needs, even after acknowledging that he “was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal,” the Supreme Court noted in its ruling.
The Supreme Court decision is a major rebuke to the administration, which, since the return of President Donald Trump to the White House, has made the forcible deportation of purported gang members a top priority.
Sotomayer wrote the dissent:
The ruling appeared to be unanimous. But Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, issued a statement that was harshly critical of the government’s conduct and said she would have upheld every part of the trial judge’s order.
“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.”
Justice Sotomayor urged the trial judge, Paula Xinis of the Federal District Court in Maryland, to “continue to ensure that the government lives up to its obligations to follow the law.”
That's lawyer speak for "Why did you even accept this case in the first place?"
