Attorneys for Salvadoran Man Kilmar Abrego Garcia praised the Supreme Court’s order, saying “the rule of law has won.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the government to “promote” the return of Salvadorans who have been mistakenly deported in the wake of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy.
Kilmer Abrego Garcia, 29, lived in eastern Maryland, but became one of more than 200 people sent to an El Salvador prison last month, as part of Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.
Most of the deportees were suspected of being members of Venezuelan gangster Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration declared to be a “foreign terrorist organization.”
However, a Justice Department lawyer confirmed that Garcia, who later married a US citizen, was deported due to “administrative errors.”
In a decision issued Thursday, the majority of conservative Supreme Court ordered the government to “promote” Garcia’s custody rights at the El Salvador prison, “If he has not been improperly sent to El Salvador, his case should be processed.”
Simon Sandoval Moschenberg, Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, welcomed the court’s ruling, saying, “The rule of law has won.”
Garcia has lived in the United States under protected legal status since 2019, when a judge ruled that he should not be deported because he could be harmed in his home country.
After his deportation and detention in the infamous CECOT anti-terrorist prison, a lower court ordered the US government to return him to the United States by midnight Monday.
The Supreme Court put the order on hold hours before the deadline after the administration requested an emergency ruling.
In its challenge, the government claimed that Garcia is a member of Salvador’s gang MS-13.
The US government also argued that it no longer had jurisdiction to release Garcia as he is in Salvador’s soil, and the lower court order called for an “unprecedented” order.
“We are sure that [in CECOT] Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem: “We’re looking forward to seeing you in the process of doing this.”
The White House concluded its $6 million contract with Salvador President Naive Bukere in return for detaining a member of a gang suspect in an ultra-high security prison.
“The (Monday) deadline for challenged orders is no longer effective,” the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
However, the judge added that he would require the return of Abrego Garcia “the remaining orders of the district court remain in effect,” but the lower court must clarify the order “in view of the respect paid to the administrative department in conduct of diplomacy.”
A statement signed by Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson alleged that Garcia had “no legal basis” for his removal to El Salvador.
Human Rights Watch on Friday called on the US government to disclose information about all those it has moved to CECOT, allow them to contact the outside world, and condemn the “cruelty” of treating the exiles by the US and El Salvadoran governments.
In another recently issued decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump could continue to deport Venezuelan immigrants under 18th century wartime law.
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