A three-judge panel for the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously bounced the Trump administration’s request to overturn a lower-court order demanding they return a wrongfully “snatched” Salvadorian immigrant to the U.S.
“The United States 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,” the panel ruled. “The Government’s contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene, are unconscionable.”
According to Democracy Docket, the court described Abrego Garcia as an El Salvadoran national who has been lawfully present in the United States since 2019, when he was granted status against "removal to El Salvador.” Garcia has no criminal history and has never been charged with a crime in the United States or El Salvador, or any other country, for that matter. Following through on his anti-immigrant campaign rhetoric, however, Trump invoked the obscure 18th century wartime Alien Enemies Act (AEA) to deport Garcia and hundreds of others to what the court describes as “a hard labor prison in El Salvador.”
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“There is no question that the government screwed up here,” Circuit Judge Harvie Wilkinson — a Ronald Reagan appointee — wrote. “The withholding of removal order was country specific; it banned the government from removing Abrego Garcia to El Salvador and El Salvador only.”
Wilkinson argued that if he ruled in favor of the Trump administration, it could allow a president to “whisk individuals to foreign prisons in violation of court orders and then contend, invoking its Article II powers, that it is no longer their custodian, and there is nothing that can be done.”
“It takes no small amount of imagination to understand that this is a path of perfect lawlessness, one that courts cannot condone,” Wilkinson added.
The suit, filed last month by Garcia and his family in the District of Maryland against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and others, will now likely proceed to the US Supreme Court upon administrative appeal.Trump officials continue to claim those deported were members of Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua, but Garcia’s wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura told reporters he fled El Salvador specifically to escape the nation's dangerous gang element that she claims may target him upon return. The judicial panel noted the administration did not even present evidence to the district court connecting Garcia to gang activity.
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In fact, CBS 60 Minutes could not confirm criminal records for 75% of 179 Venezuelans sitting in prison by virtue of the outdated Alien Enemies Act. Of the roughly 22% of men on the list with criminal records, the vast majority are for non-violent offenses like theft, shoplifting and trespassing. Serious crimes such as assault, kidnapping and murder only applied to about a dozen of the jettisoned individuals. By comparison, 1 in every 3 US adults have a criminal record.
The panel did not have complete confidence the administration would respect the power of the courts, however.
“A reciprocal respect for the roles of the Executive and the Judiciary may be too much to hope for in this most fraught and polarized of times,” the court opined, “but it remains the only way that our system of constitutional governance can ever hope to work.
Click here to read Democracy Docket's full report.
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