April 7 (UPI) — The Trump administration on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the return of a Maryland father it illegally deported to El Salvador.
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, recently confirmed to the post, wrote in a Supreme Court filing that “even admidst a deluge” of what he claimed were “unlawful” injunctions against other recent Trump administration acts, he says this current case “is remarkable.”
On Friday, a federal judge ordered the U.S. government to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia back home to the United States from El Salvador, where he is confined in a notorious supermax prison.
On Monday, an appeals court denied a White House request for a stay.
“The Constitution charges the president, not federal district courts, with the conduct of foreign diplomacy,” Sauer wrote. “And protecting the nation against foreign terrorists, including by effectuating their removal,” he added.
Abrego Garcia, despite his protected legal status since 2019 and marriage to an American citizen, is currently held at El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center prison, or CECOT.
“There is no question that the government screwed up here,” U.S. Circuit Judge Jamie Wilkinson, an appointee by former President Ronald Reagan, wrote in his opinion.
The Trump administration claimed his ICE detainment and March 15 deportation was due to an “error.”
Sauer wrote that, while the United States admitted its own mistake, it did not “license district courts to seize control over foreign relations, treat the executive branch as a subordinate diplomat, and demand that the United States let a member of a foreign terrorist organization into America tonight,” he said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice on Sunday suspended Erez Reuveni, the 15-year DOJ lawyer who attempted to argue its case in federal court, telling a judge that he did not fully understand the Trump administration’s legal reasoning.
The White House claimed Abrego Garcia, who left his native country at age 16 to escape gang violence, was a MS-13 gang member despite any evidence.
“The Government has made no effort to demonstrate that Abrego Garcia is, in fact, a member of any gang,” U.S. Circuit Judges Robert King and Stephanie Thacker wrote in a concurring opinion, adding the government had “ample opportunity” to prove its case but had not “even bothered to try.”
The Reagan-appointed Wilkinson added that “if it is truly a mistake” Abrego Garcia was deported, “one would also expect the government to do what it can to rectify it.”
“Most of us attempt to undo, to the extent that we can, the mistakes that we have made,” he said. “But, to the best of my knowledge, the government has not made the attempt here.”
