Justices direct the government to facilitate the return of a Maryland man who was mistakenly sent to El Salvador
EMERGENCY DOCKET
The Supreme Court on Thursday evening largely left in place an order by a federal judge in Maryland The justices sent the case back to the lower court for Xinis to “clarify” her additional instruction that the Trump Administration “effectuate The justices sent the case to the lower court to allow Xinis the opportunity to “clarify.” Her additional instruction that the Trump Administration “effect He has lived outside Washington, D.C., since 2019, with his wife, a U.S. Citizen, and their three children, who When he sought to be released from immigration custody with a bond, the government contended that he was a member of MS-13, an international criminal gang.
An immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s request for release, finding that “the evidence shows he is a verified member of MS-13.” Although the judge acknowledged that she was “reluctant to give evidentiary weight” to Abrego Garcia’s “clothing as an indication of gang affiliation,” she concluded that it was enough that a “past, proven, and reliable source of information” had verified Abrego Garcia’s “gang membership, gang rank, and gang name.” The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed that ruling.
Several months later, Abrego Garcia was eventually granted withholding of removal – a form of immigration relief that protects him from being deported to El Salvador. In particular, an immigration judge concluded, Abrego Garcia had shown that gang members in El Salvador continue “to threaten and harass” his family, and authorities in that country “were and would be unable or unwilling to protect him from past or feared future persecution.”
On March 12, 2025, ICE officers took Abrego Garcia into custody. He was first sent to Texas, and then on March 24, he was taken to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center. Abrego Garcia’s wife and his lawyers have not spoken to him since then. Neither Abrego Garcia’s wife nor his lawyers have spoken with him since then.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers filed a lawsuit in federal court in Maryland, asking Xinis to instruct Trump administration officials to “take all steps reasonably available to them, proportionate to the gravity of the ongoing harm, to return Plaintiff Abrego Garcia to the United States.”
Xinis ordered the federal government to return Abrego Garcia by 11:59 p.m. on Monday, April 7. The government, she emphasized, “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.”
Both Xinis and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit declined to pause the return order while the government appealed. Judge Stephanie Thacker, in a concurring opinion with Judge Robert King and Judge Robert Thacker, wrote that the federal “has no legal authority” to The Government’s contention otherwise, and its argument that the federal courts are powerless to intervene,” she concluded, “are unconscionable.”
President Donald Trump’s new solicitor general, D. John Sauer, came to the Supreme Court on Monday morning, without even waiting for the 4th Circuit to act on his request to pause the return order. He said that Xinis’s order was “unprecedented” and that he had ordered the United States to negotiate with a But even compared to those orders, he argued, Xinis’s order “is remarkable.” And he asked the justices to impose an administrative stay – that is, a temporary freeze on Xinis’s order to give the court time to consider the Trump administration’s request.
Shortly before 4 p.m. on Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts granted the administrative stay, and he directed Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to file their response by 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
Just a few minutes later, however, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers submitted their response. They urged the justices to deny the Trump administration’s request and order the government to “facilitate Abrego Garcia’s immediate return to halt the ongoing irreparable harm he suffers and advance the public interest in the proper administration of justice.”
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers stressed that their client “has never been charged with a crime, in any country. El Salvador does not want him. She said that the only “‘evidence’ against Abrego Garcia was his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie, and a She said that the only “evidence” against Abrego was his Chicago Bulls hat, hoodie and a vague uncorro She said that she would have rejected the government’s request in full, but she agreed with her colleagues on the need to give Abrego Garcia all the She added that in other types of immigration proceedings the federal government has a ‘well-established policy’ of facilitating a citizen’s return to
