The Supreme Court issued a rebuke of President Donald Trump on Thursday night, upholding a lower court’s ruling ordering the federal government to “facilitate” the return of wrongfully deported immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father, was detained and deported to a prison in El Salvador — despite being in the U.S. under a protected legal status. Although a Maryland federal judge ordered the Trump administration to provide an update on Abrego Garcia’s status on Friday, the federal government has remained defiant, and it’s not clear what will happen next. Below are updates on this ongoing story.
The president was asked about Abrego Garcia case on Friday night while speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One. Trump didn’t really acknowledge anything about the specifics of the case, but he said: “If the Supreme Court said bring somebody back, I would do that. I respect the Supreme Court. … I have great respect for the Supreme Court.”
During the press briefing, attorney Sandoval-Moshenberg, confirmed he hasn’t been in contact with his client since he was deported to El Salvador.
“Neither we nor the family have been able to make any contact with him. One of the principal human-rights violations that occur in that facility is that inmates and detainees are held incommunicado,” he said.
Sandoval-Moshenberg declined to get into specifics about what relief his team would seek if the government doesn’t comply with the Court’s order, but he promised to respond in kind.
“If they don’t take today’s order seriously, we will respond seriously,” he said.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said to reporters after the hearing that the federal government came to court lacking information on his client’s whereabouts against explicit orders. Although Sandoval-Moshenberg noted the administration’s legal team said it intends to eventually comply with the Supreme Court’s order, he said that isn’t enough.
“That’s the bare minimum. They should’ve done that already,” he said. “They’ve had plenty of time between the Supreme Court’s order early yesterday evening and now. He should be here in the United States. It’s a five-hour flight.”
The White House signaled Friday that it believes the federal government plays a limited role in returning Abrego Garcia Stateside. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked during a briefing if Trump wished El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, would bring the Maryland father home as part of his scheduled trip to the White House on Monday.
“The Supreme Court made their ruling last night very clear that it’s the administration’s responsibility to facilitate the return, not to effectuate the return,” Leavitt said.
Judge Xinis began the half-hour hearing by asking the government where Abrego Garcia currently is. ABC News has more from the exchange betwen Xinis and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign:
“I do not have that knowledge, and therefore I cannot relate that knowledge,” Ensign said.
“I’m not asking for state secrets, I’m asking where one man who is wrongly and illegally deported, removed from this country [is],” Xinis said.
“Your Honor, I do not have the information provided to me that I can provide to you,” Ensign said again.
Judge Xinis wrapped the brief hearing by ordering the federal government to provide daily status updates on Abrego Garcia’s location and its efforts to return him to the United States. Lawfare reports that government officials insisted that the administration intends to comply with the Supreme Court’s order but that the deadlines are not “practicable.”
“We’re going to make a record of what, if anything, the government is doing or not doing,” Xinis said, per ABC News.
With the afternoon hearing underway, Politico reports that Judge Xinis asked the government for an update as to Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts, but Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign said he lacks that information
Earlier this week, Trump defended Abrego Garcia’s deportation and made it clear that returning him to the United States wasn’t a priority.
“We have judges that are out of control that say, ‘Oh bring him back, bring him back.’ We don’t want him back,” he said Tuesday.
The Justice Department said it will not comply with the courts’ request for information on Abrego Garcia, writing in a new filing that it’s limited by the truncated timeline set following the Supreme Court’s ruling. The department noted Judge Xinis has yet to clarify the meaning behind her directive to “effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return and requested time to “brief that issue” before complying with any deadlines.
“In light of the insufficient amount of time afforded to review the Supreme Court’s Order following the dissolution of the administrative stay in this case, Defendants are not in a position where they ‘can’ share any information requested by the Court. That is the reality,” the filing read.
In a Friday morning filing, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys excoriated the federal government, saying the administration should have been making efforts to initiate their client’s return following Judge Xinis’s initial ruling from more than a week earlier. “Instead, the Government continues to delay, obfuscate, and flout court orders, while a man’s life and safety is at risk,” the filing read.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys also denounced the government’s request for an extension, calling it “another stunning display of arrogance and cruelty.”
“It did not take that time to ponder whether to remove Garcia — which it effectuated within 72 hours of his unlawful seizure — and it does not need that time to comply with this Court’s and the Supreme Court’s rulings,” they wrote.
CBS News reports that Judge Xinis has rebuffed the Justice Department’s attempts to delay the scheduled afternoon hearing:
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, Judge Xinis ordered the federal government to provide an update on Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts and the steps the administration has taken and will take to facilitate his return to the U.S. But the Friday 9:30 a.m. deadline came and went with no movement from the government.
Xinis later issued an extension, giving the government until 11:30 a.m. to provide the necessary information. The judge also scheduled an in-person hearing at 1 p.m.
In its opinion, the Supreme Court said it was granting the Maryland federal court its order, writing that it “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.”
But the justices said the Maryland court must clarify what it means by its directive that the federal government “effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s release with “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
“For its part, the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps,” the order read.
Since Abrego Garcia’s deportation, the Trump administration has taken the position that U.S. district court judge Paula Xinis lacks the jurisdiction to order his return from a foreign nation. The government echoed that position following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“As the Supreme Court correctly recognized, it is the exclusive prerogative of the President to conduct foreign affairs. By directly noting the deference owed to the Executive Branch, this ruling once again illustrates that activist judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of the President’s authority to conduct foreign policy,” a Justice Department statement read.
Late last month, The Atlantic reported that the federal government acknowledged in court papers that its deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was the result of an “administrative error” but that the administration lacked the ability to return him now that he is being held by El Salvador.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia’s attorney, told the outlet his client has no criminal record and was falsely accused of being a member of the gang MS-13 following a 2019 incident in which he and several other men were arrested outside a Maryland Home Depot.
Abrego Garcia fled gang violence in El Salvador and arrived in the U.S. in 2011 at the age of 16. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him a “withholding of removal,” a protected status. Abrego Garcia is married to Jennifer Vasquez Sura, a U.S. citizen, and they are raising three children together, including their 5-year-old son with special needs, per the Associated Press.
