Supreme Court unanimously rules against Trump in case of wrongfully deported man
In a decision handed down without any dissent, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is now ordering President Donald Trump's administration to immediately "facilitate" the return of a man it admitted was mistakenly included on a deportation flight to El Salvador.
Politico reported Thursday evening that despite its 6-3 conservative supermajority, SCOTUS is ordering that Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia be brought back to the United States. While Democratic-appointed Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan joined a statement by Justice Sonia Sotomayor praising the decision to return Abrego Garcia, none of the six conservative appointees voiced anything in opposition.
"To this day, the Government has cited no basis in law for Abrego Garcia's warrantless arrest, his removal to El Salvador, or his confinement in a Salvadoran prison," Sotomayor wrote. "Nor could it."
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Previously, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg imposed a deadline of this past Monday for the administration to return Abrego Garcia back to Maryland after the government admitted he shouldn't have been included on one of three deportation flights to El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison. The administration sent the planeloads of Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, alleging that those on board were members of the violent gang Tren de Aragua (without providing any proof of their affiliation or providing them due process hearings beforehand). Lawyers for the administration argued that it had the right to deport the immigrants without due process under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
However, just before Boasberg's deadline approached, Chief Justice John Roberts paused the deadline, and the Court allowed Trump to continue using the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants without first providing them their day in court. The controversial 18th century legislation has only been used three times in U.S. history, with the last time being World War II, when former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt interned thousands of Japanese Americans without due process.
Abrego Garcia was specifically protected by a 2019 court order preventing him from being sent to El Salvador, as he faced significant risk of persecution by the regime. The administration maintained that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang, though it has yet to provide any evidence of its claim.
Click here to read Politico's full report, and click here to read the Supreme Court's decision.
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