CNN —
The Supreme Court on Thursday required President Donald Trump’s administration to “facilitate” the return of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador but stopped short of requiring the government to return him to the United States.
The high court said that the administration must try to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was deported on March 15. It said part of the lower court’s order requiring the government to “effectuate” his return was unclear and needed further review.
The court did not give the administration a deadline for when Abrego Garcia should be returned. The opinion was unsigned and no dissents were noted.
“Although the ruling makes clear that the district court can order the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States, it is maddeningly vague about exactly how it’s supposed to do so,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center.
“For instance, if the judge asks the government about the specific arrangements it’s made with the Salvadoran government and the government invokes the state secrets privilege, what happens then?” Vladeck added. “It is, yet again, punting in a context in which the government can take advantage of the punt–a loss for Trump on the big question, but a loss for Abrego García on what matters most.”
The court’s three liberals didn’t dissent from the decision but wrote separately to argue that the Trump administration’s emergency appeal should have been denied in full.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed the administration to existing executive branch policy that the federal government should “facilitate [an] alien’s return to the United States if … the alien’s presence is necessary for continued administrative removal proceedings.”
Sotomayor’s statement criticized the Trump administration for dismissing the mistaken removal as an “oversight,” rather than “hastening to correct its egregious error.”
“The Government now requests an order from this Court permitting it to leave Abrego Garcia, a husband and father without a criminal record, in a Salvadoran prison for no reason recognized by the law,” she and the other liberals said. “The only argument the Government offers in support of its request, that United States courts cannot grant relief once a deportee crosses the border, is plainly wrong.”
Sotomayor said that when the proceedings go back to the lower court, the judge should “continue to ensure that the Government lives up to its obligations to follow the law.” Among those obligations, she said, are several due process protections in immigration statute, as well as the United Nations’ Convention Against Torture.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
