Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Monday temporarily blocked a lower court order that would have required the Trump administration to return a Maryland man it mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
In a one-page order, Roberts stayed the April 4 ruling by a federal judge in Maryland that gave the administration until 11:59 p.m. Monday to “facilitate and effectuate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The chief justice’s order pauses that requirement “pending further order” and gives Abrego Garcia’s attorneys until 5 p.m. Tuesday to file a response.
The emergency request, filed by the Department of Justice on Monday morning, argued the administration cannot compel El Salvador to reverse the deportation. “The United States does not control the sovereign nation of El Salvador,” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, has lived in Maryland since entering the United States illegally in 2012. He was arrested in March and deported days later to CECOT, a notorious Salvadoran prison, despite a 2019 court order blocking his removal. The Trump administration has acknowledged the deportation to El Salvador was an error but claims he is a member of the MS-13 gang, stripping him of protections under immigration law.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ASKS SUPREME COURT TO INTERVENE IN CASE OF MISTAKEN DEPORTATION
Abrego Garcia’s attorney denies the gang affiliation and says the government has provided no evidence beyond a single Department of Homeland Security informant. “The U.S. government has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation,” the attorney wrote.
Hours before Roberts’s decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the administration’s request to halt the Maryland judge’s order. The panel also rebuked the DOJ for suspending an attorney who struggled to defend the deportation in court, warning that the rule of law cannot be compromised by “zealous advocacy.”