Supreme Court orders Trump administration to bring back man wrongly deported to 'superjail' in El Salvador

By Emma Soteriou

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Trump administration must work to bring back a man who was mistakenly deported to prison in El Salvador, rejecting the White House's emergency appeal.

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The court on Thursday acted in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs.

US District Judge Paula Xinis had ordered the Maryland man, now being held in a notorious Salvadoran prison, to return to the United States by midnight on Monday.

"The 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 court said in an unsigned order with no noted dissents.

It comes after a string of rulings on the court's emergency docket where the conservative majority has at least partially sided with Donald Trump amid a wave of lower court rulings that have slowed the president's sweeping agenda.

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In Thursday's case, Chief Justice John Roberts had already pushed back Ms Xinis' deadline, and the justices said that her order must now be clarified to make sure it does not intrude into executive branch power over foreign affairs since Mr Abrego Garcia is being held abroad.

The Trump administration should also be prepared to share what steps it has taken to try and get him back and what more it could potentially do, the court said.

The administration claims Mr Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, though he has never been charged with or convicted of a crime.

His lawyers said there is no evidence he was in MS-13.

The administration has conceded that it made a mistake in sending him to El Salvador but argued that it no longer could do anything about it.

The court's liberal justices said the administration should have hastened to correct "its egregious error" and was "plainly wrong" to suggest it could not bring him home.

"The Government's argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including US citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, joined by her two colleagues.

In the district court, Ms Xinis wrote that the decision to arrest Mr Abrego Garcia and send him to El Salvador appears to be "wholly lawless".

There is little to no evidence to support a "vague, uncorroborated" allegation that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was once in the MS-13 street gang, Ms Xinis wrote.

Abrego Garcia, 29, was detained by immigration agents and deported last month.

He had a permit from the Homeland Security Department to legally work in the US and was a sheet metal apprentice pursuing a journeyman licence, his lawyer said.

His wife is a US citizen.

In 2019, an immigration judge barred the US from deporting Mr Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, finding that he faced likely persecution by local gangs.

A Justice Department lawyer conceded in a court hearing that Mr Abrego Garcia should not have been deported.

Attorney general Pam Bondi later removed the lawyer, Erez Reuveni, from the case and placed him on leave.