Jennifer, center, whose husband Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported by ICE, is hugged by a staff member of CASA, at the CASA Multicultural Center during a press conference ahead of Garcia’s hearing.
The Washington Post | Getty Images
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court order that the Trump administration must facilitate the return to the United States of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was forcibly and wrongly deported to El Salvador, where he is being held in a notorious prison.
But the Supreme Court in its unsigned decision told Maryland Federal District Court Judge Paula Xinis to clarify the order she issued in the case, raising the question of whether the administration can and will be compelled by the courts to get Abrego Garcia back.
Xinis in her April 4th order directed the Trump administration “to facilitate and effectuate the return” of Abrego Garcia, who officials allege is a gang member, which he denies.
In its ruling Thursday, the Supreme Court said, “The [district court] order properly requires the Government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
“The intended scope of the term ‘effectuate’ in the District Court’s order is, however, unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority,” the Supreme Court said.
“The District Court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs,” the ruling said.
The decision, which had no noted dissents, also directed the Trump administration to prepare “to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps” related to his possible return.
Xinis, within hours, modified her order to reflect the Supreme Court decision. Her new order omitted the word “effectuate.”
“To this end, the Court hereby amends this Order to Direct that Defendants take all available steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States as soon as possible,” the judge wrote.
Xinis also ordered the government to file by 9:30 a.m. ET Friday a declaration addressing “the current physical location and custodial status of Abrego Garcia, (2) what steps, if any, Defendants have taken to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s immediate return to the United States; and (3) what additional steps Defendants will take, and when, to facilitate his return.”
She scheduled a status conference for the parties in the case at 1 p.m. in Greenbelt, Maryland, federal court.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Andrew Rossman, in an email to NBC News, wrote, “The rule of law won today.”
“Time to bring him home,” Rossman wrote of his client, a married El Salvador native who has three children with special needs.
In a letter Thursday night to U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who represented the Justice Department in the case before the Supreme Court, Rossman wrote that consistent with the high court’s order “we expect that the United States will facilitate Mr. Abrego-Garcia’s immediate release from CECOT — tonight — and make all necessary arrangements for his return to this country, including by dispatching an aircraft to El Salvador to bring him home.”
“As you know, given the conditions of Mr. Abrego-Garcia’s confinement, and the grave risk to his safety in El Salvador, time is of the essence,” the lawyer wrote.
The Justice Department, in a statement, said, “As the Supreme Court correctly recognized, it is the exclusive prerogative of the President to conduct foreign affairs.”
“By directly noting the deference owed to the Executive Branch, this ruling once again illustrates that activist judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of the President’s authority to conduct foreign policy,” the department said.
But the Supreme Court decision, by upholding Xinis’ authority to direct the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, is a rebuke to the administration, which, since the return of President Donald Trump to the White House, has made the forcible deportation of purported gang members a top priority.
Salvadoran prison guards escort alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and the MS-13 gang recently deported by the U.S. government to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, as part of an agreement with the Salvadoran government, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, in this handout image obtained March 31, 2025.
Secretaria De Prensa De La Presidencia | Via Reuters
In ruling in another case on Monday, the Supreme Court said the administration could resume using the Alien Enemies Act to seek the deportations of alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to El Salvador.
But in a victory for civil liberty advocates, the court in the same ruling said the would-be deportees must be given time to challenge their detentions by U.S. authorities and to challenge the use of the act in their cases.
Abrego Garcia was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Maryland on March 12, and deported three days later.
The Trump administration opposed the order to return Abrego Garcia after acknowledging that he “was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal,” the Supreme Court noted in its ruling.
The Justice Department said his removal was due to an “administrative error.”
But Justice Department lawyers also said Abrego Garcia was found to be a member of the notorious gang MS-13, which the United States has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
His lawyers, however, deny that he is a member of that gang. They also said he has lived in the U.S. for a decade without ever being charged with a crime.
People walk near the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 8, 2025.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
In a statement attached to the Supreme Court’s order, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “To this day, the Government has cited no basis in law for Abrego Garcia’s warrantless arrest, his removal to El Salvador, or his con- confinement in a Salvadoran prison. Nor could it.”
“The Government remains bound by an Immigration Judge’s 2019 order expressly prohibiting Abrego Garcia’s removal to El Salvador because he faced a ‘clear probability of future persecution’ there,” wrote Sotomayor, whose statement was joined by justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“Instead of hastening to correct its egregious error, the Government dismissed it as an ‘oversight.’ “
Sotomayor wrote that the government’s only argument is that U.S. courts cannot grant relief to a deportee who crosses the border.
That “is plainly wrong,” she said.
“The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene,” Sotmayor wrote. “That view refutes itself.”