Trump Admin Asks Supreme Court to Halt Judge’s Ruling Ordering Return of Deportee

The Trump administration has filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to block a federal judge’s order requiring the government to bring back an illegal immigrant who was deported to El Salvador.

“While the United States concedes that removal to El Salvador was an administrative error, see App., infra, 60a, that does not license district courts to seize control over foreign relations, treat the Executive Branch as a subordinate diplomat, and demand that the United States let a member of a foreign terrorist organization into America tonight,” the filing states.

Abrego-Garcia, a Salvadoran national who entered the United States illegally around 2011, was arrested in Maryland in 2019 and placed in immigration proceedings. That same year, an immigration judge ruled that although he was subject to removal, he could not be deported to El Salvador due to a high likelihood of persecution there.

Despite that ruling, Abrego-Garcia was arrested on March 12 by Homeland Security Investigations, a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Officials cited what they described as his “prominent role” in the MS-13 gang, which the Trump administration had recently designated a foreign terrorist organization. He was placed on a deportation flight three days later, on March 15.

According to ICE official Robert Cerna II, Abrego-Garcia had not been on the original manifest for the flight but was listed as an alternate. As other individuals were removed from the flight, Abrego-Garcia’s name was moved up and he was added to the final passenger list. The manifest, Cerna added, failed to indicate that Abrego-Garcia had legal protection from removal to El Salvador.

“Through administrative error, Abrego-Garcia was removed from the United States to El Salvador,” Cerna said in the filing. “This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13.”

Abrego-Garcia’s lawyers have argued there is no credible evidence linking him to MS-13.

Xinis also rejected the administration’s claim that the court had overstepped its authority, finding that Abrego-Garcia’s deportation was illegal and that the government could not now avoid responsibility by claiming it lacked the power to correct the mistake.

“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,” she wrote. “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.”

On April 5, the Department of Justice filed a motion with the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals seeking an emergency stay of Xinis’s order. That appeal remained pending as of Monday, prompting the government to escalate the matter to the Supreme Court.

In its filing, the Trump administration warned of sweeping consequences if the lower court’s ruling were allowed to stand. “The United States cannot guarantee success in sensitive international negotiations in advance, least of all when a court imposes an absurdly compressed, mandatory deadline,” the government wrote.