The US supreme court upheld on Thursday a judge’s order requiring Donald Trump’s administration to facilitate the return to the United States of a Salvadoran man who the government has acknowledged was deported in error to El Salvador.
US district judge Paula Xinis last week issued an order that the administration “facilitate and effectuate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, in response to a lawsuit filed by the man and his family challenging the legality of his deportation.
The supreme court, in an unsigned decision, said that the judge’s order “properly requires the government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador”.
However, the court said that the additional requirement to “effectuate” his return was unclear and may exceed the judge’s authority. The justices directed Xinis to clarify the directive “with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs”.
The administration, meanwhile, “should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps,” the court directed.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was living in Maryland and has had a work permit since 2019, was stopped and detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was deported on 15 March on one of three high-profile deportation flights to El Salvador that also included alleged Venezuelan gang members.
Justice department lawyers in a supreme court brief had argued that the judge’s order, by requiring the Trump administration to “effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return, had impermissibly encroached on presidential authority on foreign relations in violation of the US constitution’s separation of powers between its judicial and executive branches.
“The United States does not control the sovereign nation of El Salvador, nor can it compel El Salvador to follow a federal judge’s bidding,” justice department lawyers wrote.
The supreme court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices on Thursday issued a statement agreeing with the court’s decision, but said they would have denied the administration’s request outright.
“To this day, 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,” liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the statement.
Sotomayor added that the administration had requested “an order from this court permitting it to leave Abrego Garcia, a husband and father without a criminal record, in a Salvadoran prison for no reason recognized by the law”.
Abrego Garcia is married to a US citizen with whom he is raising a US citizen child in addition to his wife’s two children from a prior relationship. He had never been charged with or convicted of any crime, according to Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, who have denied the justice department’s allegation that he is a member of the criminal gang MS-13.
Source: theguardian.com
