The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld an order requiring the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego García, a Maryland resident the administration said it mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison last month.
The Trump administration alleged Abrego García was an MS-13 gang member and has argued his return to the U.S. could pose a threat. Abrego García is married to a U.S. citizen and his lawyer has said he has yet to be charged with any crime. The 29-year-old is being held in the country’s Terrorism Confinement Center, and the administration has offered scant evidence to tie him to the gang.
The court backed an order from District Court Judge Paula Xinis that mandated Abrego García’s return and said the administration must “ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” But it gave no set deadline for his return and asked the lower court to clarify its order.
There were no written dissents, but several of the liberal judges argued the court should have gone further than it did.
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“The proper remedy is to provide Abrego Garcia with all the process to which he would have been entitled had he not been unlawfully removed to El Salvador. That means the Government must comply with its obligation to provide Abrego Garcia with ‘due process of law,’ including notice and an opportunity to be heard, in any future proceedings,” liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a statement accompanying the opinion with Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Those justices cast the administration’s argument that it could not facilitate Abrego García’s return because he had already been removed from U.S. soil as “plainly wrong.”
The lower court’s deadline for Abrego García’s return on Monday passed after the Supreme Court issued a stay hours before midnight. In its Thursday ruling, the Supreme Court asked the district court to clarify its order, and told the administration to prepare to “share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”
“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 Supreme Court ruling read. “The district court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
Democrats and some Republicans had decried the deportation and called for the Trump administration to answer for its error.
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Mark Alfred is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
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