Trump administration asks Supreme Court to block order to return deported Maryland father
The family of a Maryland father mistakenly deported by the Trump administration could learn on Monday whether he will be returned to the United States or remain in the violent El Salvador prison where he is being held.
A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Virginia, on Monday left in place a deadline for the administration to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the United States by 11:59 p.m. Monday. A judge in a lower court issued the deadline last week.
The administration filed a request to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday morning to suspend the order to return Abrego Garcia.
In a written order on Sunday upholding her verbal order from Friday, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland called Abrego Garcia's mistaken removal a "grievous error" that officials confessed to committing. The risk of harm holding him in the Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, "shocks the conscience," she said.
Justice Department lawyers accuse the sheet metal worker, who has lived with his family in Maryland, of ties to the MS-13 gang.
Xinis said the government has not provided evidence of gang ties, nor explained why he's held in CECOT.
"That silence is telling," Xinis wrote in the memorandum opinion upholding her ruling. "As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador — let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere.”
On Saturday, Justice Department lawyers had challenged the order by Xinis, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
“That order is indefensible,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in the emergency motion, requesting appellate judges rule by Sunday. “Foremost, it commands Defendants to do something they have no independent authority to do: Make El Salvador release Abrego Garcia, and send him to America.”
They continued that line of reasoning in their filing with the Supreme Court on Monday.
"If this precedent stands, other district courts could order the United States to successfully negotiate the return of other removed aliens anywhere in the world by close of business," Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.
Government lawyers compared the administration's power to bring Abrego Garcia back to a court ordering the administration to end Russia's war in Ukraine or return Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
In mid-March, Abrego Garcia was one of hundreds of people accused of being gang members the U.S. government expelled to CECOT. President Donald Trump invoked the seldom-used 1798 Alien Enemies Act to expedite deportations to El Salvador.
Federal immigration agents detained Abrego Garcia on March 12 when he was returning home from work. His 5-year-old son, who is autistic, was in the backseat.
Trump officials later admitted Abrego Garcia's removal was an "administrative error." Family lawyers said they’ve been unable to contact him in CECOT.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said in court filings on Sunday that the government mischaracterized Xinis’ order as foreign policy instead of upholding a judge’s order against Abrego Garcia’s mistaken detention and deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“If ICE can ignore binding legal protections and no court can do anything about it, then our laws are meaningless,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, said in a statement.
Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, and son — both U.S. citizens — sued the government for his return.
On Sunday, Vasquez Sura said in a statement she was "anxiously awaiting" both U.S. President Donald Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's administrations to "do the right thing and bring my husband home."
She urged the two presidents, as fathers, to consider the pain they've inflicted on her family with their "ongoing attempts" to delay Abrego Garcia's return.
Contributing: Bart Jansen and Joey Garrison.