Chief Justice Roberts Blocks Judge’s Order for Return of Illegal Migrant

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts paused a federal judge’s order that required the Trump administration to return an illegal alien who was deported to El Salvador.

In a court filing, Roberts wrote that an order from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, that Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an illegal migrant from El Salvador, be returned to the United States “no later than 11:59 p.m. on Monday, April 7, 2025,” was “hereby stayed pending” a further order from Roberts or from the Supreme Court.

“IT IS ORDERED that the April 4, 2025 order of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, case No. 8:25-cv 951, is hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court,” Roberts wrote. “It is further ordered that a response to the application to be filed on or before Tuesday, April 8th, 2025, by 5 p.m. (EDT).”

Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a statement in response to Roberts’s decision, explaining that the Trump administration welcomes “this stay from the Supreme Court” as they “continue to fight this case.”

“We welcome this stay from the Supreme Court as we continue to fight this case and protect the executive branch from judicial overreach,” Bondi said in her statement.

Roberts’s decision came after the Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the Supreme Court to override Xinis’s order, arguing that “if this precedent stands, other district courts could order the United States to successfully negotiate the return of other removed aliens.”

“If this precedent stands, other district courts could order the United States to successfully negotiate the return of other removed aliens anywhere in the world by close of business,” U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer wrote.

As Breitbart News previously reported, DOJ lawyers argued that Xinis cannot order the Trump administration to return Garcia to the U.S., and asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to “immediately pause” Xinis’s order.

Politico reported that the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had “resoundingly rejected the claim that the administration has no power to seek” Garcia’s return to the U.S.

The Trump administration has said that Garcia’s deportation was due to an “administrative error” and “oversight.”

Breitbart News previously reported that Garcia, who “entered the U.S. illegally in 2011,” has been described by the news as being a “Maryland father with protected status”:

The focus this week is on Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a migrant from El Salvador, who has been sent home despite a 2019 judicial decision that barred his deportation to just one country, El Salvador.

Garcia has been deported to El Salvador and is getting help to use the federal government for a return back to the United States.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has explained that the Trump administration has “credible intelligence proving” that Garcia “was involved in human tracking” and has stated that he is allegedly a member, and “a leader, of the brutal MS-13 gang.”

“The administration maintains the position that this individual — who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country, was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang. That is fact number one,” Leavitt explained. “Fact number two, we also have credible intelligence proving that this individual was involved in human trafficking. And, fact number three, this individual was a member, actually a leader, of the brutal MS-13 gang — which this President has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”