Summary:
With just hours to go before the Trump administration has to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a protected Maryland resident who was mistakenly sent to El Salvador as part of President Donald Trump’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants under an 18th-century wartime authority — back to the United States as part of a judge’s order, the Justice Department has tossed up a “Hail Mary” bid to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to put the kibosh on the efforts.
“On Friday afternoon, a federal district judge in Maryland 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. tonight,” wrote Solicitor General D. John Sauer in the DOJ’s Supreme Court application to vacate the order.
“This order sets the United States up for failure,” Sauer said.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis on Friday granted a preliminary injunction and gave the DOJ just over three days to facilitate bringing Abrego Garcia back to the country, referring to his deportation as “an illegal act” in her order. The 29-year-old was sent to El Salvador on March 15 in error as part of President Trump’s proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to rush through mass deportations — which have since been blocked by a federal judge — without providing due process to those being flown out of the country, often not to their country of origin. Abrego Garcia was in the country with protected legal status at the time of his deportation. His wife and 5-year-old child are U.S. citizens. The DOJ admitted to the lower court on Friday that his deportation was an “administrative error,” leading to the suspension of a 15-year DOJ vet who made the public confession.
On Sunday, Xinis issued a 22-page opinion saying she would not back off from forcing the Department of Homeland Security and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who are being sued, to return Abrego Garcia to U.S. soil. The DOJ filed an emergency motion to stay Xinis’ preliminary injunction on Saturday with the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and lower court, “given the urgency of harms to the government,” the DOJ filings said. The 4th Circuit denied the motion on Monday shortly before the DOJ filed its Supreme Court application.
Department Of ~~Justice~~ Injustice