The Trump Administration Is Openly Defying the Supreme Court's Order to Bring Home Abrego Garcia After Erroneously Deporting Him to a Salvadoran Gulag

Apr 14, 2025

The Trump administration illegally deported an innocent man to a brutal prison in El Salvador. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s order requiring the administration to “facilitate” his return and release. After days of delay, the administration is now openly defying the court.

CNN reports:

The Trump administration insisted Sunday that it is not required to work with officials in El Salvador to secure the return of a man mistakenly deported to the country, days after the Supreme Court endorsed a federal judge’s directive that U.S. officials must “facilitate” bringing him back stateside. …
The assertion, made in court papers by Justice Department lawyers, comes after US District Judge Paula Xinis on Friday ordered the administration to “take all available steps to facilitate” the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison last month.

Donald Trump also made this clear in a meeting with El Salvador’s strongman ruler, Nayib Bukele, who said, “Of course I’m not going to do it.” Trump went on to say he is planning to send U.S. citizens to the same prison.

At stake here are the ancient protections of habeas corpus and due process. The administration is insisting is that they can seize anyone from the streets, send him to a foreign prison without any process at all, then declare him outside the reach of the U.S. courts.

Ask yourself if any of us is safe under these conditions.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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