The Supreme Court on Thursday evening largely upheld a ruling by a federal judge in Maryland directing the government to return a Maryland man currently held in a maximum-security prison in El Salvador due to what the Trump administration has admitted was an “administrative error.”
In an unsigned opinion without any recorded dissents, the court denied the Trump administration’s request to block the ruling made by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, which Chief Justice John Roberts had temporarily paused earlier in the week to grant the justices time to consider the government’s request.
The justices agreed that Judge Xinis could require the Trump administration to “facilitate” Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure his case is treated as it would have been had he not been wrongfully sent to the country.
However, the court remanded the case to the lower court for Judge Xinis to clarify her additional instruction that the Trump administration “effectuate” his return.
In making that clarification, the justices noted that Judge Xinis should consider the “deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
On the other hand, they emphasized that the Trump administration “should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken” to secure Abrego Garcia’s return “and the prospect of further steps.”
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the central figure in the case, is a 29-year-old man born in El Salvador who immigrated to the United States illegally as a teenager to escape gang violence in his home country.
Since 2019, he has lived outside Washington, D.C., with his wife, a U.S. citizen, and their three children, all of whom are also U.S. citizens.
In 2019, immigration officials began the process to deport Abrego Garcia.
When he sought to be released from immigration custody with bail, the government alleged that he was a member of MS-13, a notorious international criminal gang.
An immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s request for release, claiming, “the evidence shows he is a verified member of MS-13.”
Even though the judge was “reluctant to give evidentiary weight” to Abrego Garcia’s attire as an indication of gang affiliation, she decided that a “past, proven, and reliable source of information” had confirmed Abrego Garcia’s “gang membership, gang rank, and gang name.”
The ruling was subsequently affirmed by the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Several months later, Abrego Garcia was granted withholding of removal, a form of immigration relief protecting him from being deported to El Salvador.
An immigration judge concluded that Abrego Garcia adequately demonstrated that gang members in El Salvador continued to “threaten and harass” his family, while authorities in that country “were and would be unable or unwilling to protect him from past or feared future persecution.”
On March 12, 2025, ICE officers took Abrego Garcia into custody, first sending him to Texas and then transferring him on March 24 to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center.
Upon arrival, detainees from the United States undergo dehumanizing treatment, including being stripped, shackled, and having their heads shaved.
Since that time, neither Abrego Garcia’s wife nor his lawyers have been able to speak with him.
Abrego Garcia’s legal team filed a lawsuit in federal court in Maryland, urging Judge Xinis to compel Trump administration officials to “take all steps reasonably available to them” to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
Judge Xinis ordered the federal government to return Abrego Garcia by 11:59 p.m. on April 7, emphasizing that the government “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.”
Both Judge Xinis and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit denied the government’s request to pause the order during its appeal.
In a concurring opinion shared with Judge Robert King, Judge Stephanie Thacker remarked that the federal government “has no legal authority to snatch a person who is lawfully present in the United States off the street and remove him from the country without due process.”
Pointing to the government’s claims otherwise, she stated that their argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene is “unconscionable.”
D. John Sauer, the new solicitor general for President Donald Trump, presented the case to the Supreme Court on Monday morning without waiting for the 4th Circuit to act on his plea to pause the return order.
He claimed that Judge Xinis had “ordered unprecedented relief: dictating to the United States that it must not only negotiate with a foreign country to return an enemy alien on foreign soil, but also succeed by 11:59 p.m.” the same day.
Sauer reiterated the Trump administration’s grievances regarding what he described as “a deluge of unlawful injunctions” by federal judges nationwide.
However, even amid those orders, he considered Xinis’s decree to be “remarkable.”
Sauer requested the justices to impose an administrative stay—essentially, a temporary freeze on Judge Xinis’s order—so they could deliberate on the Trump administration’s request.
Before 4 p.m. that Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts granted the administrative stay and instructed Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to submit their response by 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
Shortly thereafter, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers responded to the justices, urging them to deny the Trump administration’s request and instead mandate the government to “facilitate Abrego Garcia’s immediate return to halt the ongoing irreparable harm he suffers and advance the public interest in the proper administration of justice.”
They highlighted that their client “has never been charged with a crime, in any country” and “is not wanted by the Government of El Salvador.”
His continued detention, they argued, is solely at the behest of the United States and a consequence of a “Kafka-esque mistake.”
Abrego Garcia’s legal team underscored that requiring the federal government to facilitate his return is not a new concept.
Judge Xinis dismissed the government’s claims regarding Abrego Garcia’s affiliation with MS-13, noting that the evidence presented against him comprised mere belongings, such as a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie, as well as an unconfirmed allegation from a confidential informant.
The confidential informant claimed he belonged to MS-13’s “Western” clique in New York, a place he has never lived.
In a two-page opinion released shortly after 6:30 p.m. on Thursday night, the Supreme Court observed that, due to the administrative stay granted by Roberts earlier, the deadline for Abrego Garcia’s return had “now passed,” thus granting part of the government’s application.
However, the court emphasized that the remainder of Judge Xinis’s ruling “remains in effect but requires clarification on remand.”
The court indicated that it is unclear what the term “effectuate” means in the context of returning Abrego Garcia and whether Judge Xinis possesses the authority to compel the government to comply.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored an opinion on the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday, which was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
She expressed her position that she would have entirely rejected the government’s request.
Nonetheless, she concurred with her peers that “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.”
This process includes “notice and an opportunity to be heard” in future proceedings, adherence to international conventions prohibiting torture, and compliance with federal laws governing the detention and removal of noncitizens.
Sotomayor also pointed out that in other immigration proceedings, the federal government has a “well-established policy” for facilitating a noncitizen’s return to the United States.
She concluded that in the proceedings on remand, Judge Xinis should continue to ensure that the government adheres to its legal obligations.
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