Judges Smack Down Trump’s ‘Shocking’ Arguments in Abrego Garcia Case

An appeals court smacked down Donald Trump’s latest effort to avoid complying with directives from the Supreme Court and a district court, which both ordered the administration to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man it illegally sent to a notorious torture prison in El Salvador. 

A three-judge panel on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected the administration’s request to avoid complying with the court orders, writing that the Trump Justice Department’s “shocking” arguments in Abrego Garcia’s case “would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood.”

The judges summed up Trump’s arguments thusly: “The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

Last week, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a district court’s order and directed the administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. In sending the case back down to the lower court, the high court instructed the Trump administration to “be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps” it would take to bring Abrego Garcia home. 

Abrego Garcia fled gang violence in El Salvador and entered the U.S. in 2011 as a teenager. A judge previously granted him a “protection from removal” order on the basis that his life would be threatened if he were deported to El Salvador. As such, his deportation to El Salvador was “illegal,” as the Supreme Court noted. 

The Trump Justice Department has submitted that Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador was the result of an “administrative error,” though his lawyers and administration officials have argued that shouldn’t matter. Abrego Garcia was among hundreds of migrants who the U.S. shipped to El Salvador without due process. 

The Trump administration dutifully ignored the Supreme Court’s order, as it refused to provide the district court with any information concerning the steps it was taking to bring back Abrego Garcia. Instead, Trump and his lawyers publicly asserted they had won their case before the Supreme Court and had no responsibility to bring back Abrego Garcia at all. 

On Wednesday evening, the Trump administration appealed U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’ directive that the Justice Department provide daily updates to the court regarding its efforts to bring back Abrego Garcia — an order that was crafted based on the Supreme Court’s ruling last week. 

The administration additionally appealed Xinis’ discovery order, under which Abrego Garcia’s family has now requested the administration describe the actions it’s taken and will further take to secure Abrego Garcia’s release from prison and his return from El Salvador; describe the terms of its agreement with El Salvador to detain Abrego Garcia and hundreds of other migrants from the U.S.; and identify who negotiated the agreement.

Trump appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals — which had already upheld the district court’s original order that the administration “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return, before that order was upheld by the Supreme Court. 

The appeals court, in an opinion authored by Circuit Judge Harvie Wilkinson, wrote that it would “not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision.” 

The judges refused to accept the Trump administration’s word games about the meaning of the word “facilitate,” with the judges writing that this argument “is not well taken in light of the Supreme Court’s command that the government facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.”

The court did not accept the Trump administration’s arguments that it can refuse to adhere to the “protection from removal” order in Abrego Garcia’s case because it has chosen to assert he is a member of MS-13, a gang that Trump has designated as a terrorist organization.

“The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process,” the judges wrote. “If the government is confident of its position, it should be assured that position will prevail in proceedings to terminate the withholding of removal order.” 

Noting that “the government has conceded that Abrego Garcia was wrongly or ‘mistakenly’ deported,” the judges asked: “Why then should it not make what was wrong, right?”

Pointing to news reports about Trump publicly expressing an interest in deporting “homegrown” American criminals to foreign prisons, the judges wrote: “The executive possesses enormous powers to prosecute and to deport, but with powers come restraints. If today the executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies?”