President Donald Trump’s administration has called on the Supreme Court to block a lower court order that requires men deported to El Salvador to be returned to the United States.
A federal judge in Maryland ruled that the government must bring Kilmer Abrego Garcia back by Monday night. The order was upheld by the Court of Appeals on Monday.
The government said Garcia was deported on March 15 due to “administrative errors,” but he claims he is a member of the MS-13 gang.
In an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the administration argued that Maryland judges lacked the authority to issue orders, and that US authorities could not force El Salvador to return Garcia.
US Attorney General D. John Sauer wrote in his court application: “The United States does not control the sovereign state of El Salvador and cannot force it to comply with the bids of federal judges.”
“The Constitution accuses the President, not the federal district court, of protecting the nation from acts of diplomacy and foreign terrorists, including implementing their removal.”
Garcia, 29, is hosting the largest security prison in El Salvador known as the Centre for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT).
His wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sula, is a US citizen and called for his release.
Garcia illegally entered the United States as a teenager. The judge granted protection from deportation in 2019.
Simon Sandoval Moshenberg, a family lawyer, called Galika’s deportation “equivalent to forced exile.”
Last week, Obama’s appointee, US District Judge Paula Sinis, burned up a Trump administration lawyer during a deportation hearing.
Justice Department lawyer Erez Roubeni told her Garcia “should not have been removed.”
Over the weekend, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondy announced that Rouveni, a 15-year Justice Department veteran, had taken paid administrative leave for failing to “advocate diligently on behalf of the United States.”
In her opinion released Sunday, Judge Sinis found that the US government acted “without legal authority” and kept Garcia in a “direct violation” “without legal basis.”
The Trump administration escalated the case to the Maryland Court of Appeals, which denied their demand to maintain Judge Sinis’ order.
Questions are now in front of the Supreme Court – hours ahead of the deadline for Garcia to return on Monday night (Tuesday at 03:59 GMT) by 23:59 EDT.
The Trump administration has called the deadline “arbitrarily-and-impossible.”
They are asking the Supreme Court to grant “at least an immediate administrative stay.”
If the Supreme Court does not intervene, the lower court order will remain alive and the Trump administration will need to take steps to bring Garcia back to the United States.
