District Court and Fourth Circuit Order Trump Administration to Return Wrongfully Deported Immigrant
Yesterday, a federal district court ordered the Trump Administration to secure the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant the government admits was illegally deported to El Salvador and then incarcerated in the horrendous CECOT prison, as part of a deal under which the Salvadoran government imprisons migrants deported by the US in exchange for a payment. Today, a unanimous appellate panel of the Fourth Circuit refused to stay the ruling. These decisions are obviously correct, and the Trump administration’s argument to the contrary has extremely dangerous implications. It suggests that the government can deport and imprison anyone it wants – including US citizens – and then be immune from judicial review, so long as the incarceration is done by a foreign state, even one that is obviously doing it at the behest of the US government.
As the district court summarized its reasoning:
As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador —let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere. Having confessed grievous error, the Defendants now argue that this Court lacks the power to hear this case, and they lack the power to order Abrego Garcia’s return…. For the following reasons, their jurisdictional arguments fail as a matter of law. Further, to avoid clear irreparable harm, and because equity and justice compels it, the Court grants the narrowest, daresay only, relief warranted: to order that Defendants return Abrego Garcia to the United States.
Judge Paula Xinis goes on to point out the obvious flaw in the administration’s position that Abrego Garcia is outside the control of the US government:
The Defendants’ redressability argument, simply put, is that their placement of Abrego
Garcia in an El Salvadoran prison deprives them of any power to return him. Thus, they say, even if Abrego Garcia succeeds on the merits, Defendants are powerless to get him back. The facts demonstrate otherwise….First, Defendants can and do return wrongfully removed migran
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