Trump administration officials have petitioned the Supreme Court to stop a court-ordered return of a deported Salvadoran man labeled an MS-13 gang member.
The Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a lower court order requiring the federal government to return an illegal immigrant deported to El Salvador, granting the Trump administration a brief reprieve as it appeals the case.
Chief Justice John Roberts entered the stay on April 7, pausing a Maryland district judge’s ruling that ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to bring Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego-Garcia back to the United States by 11:59 p.m. on April 7.
The stay, which will remain in effect pending further action by Roberts or the full court, also requires Abrego-Garcia’s legal team to file a response by 5 p.m. on April 8.
The order was issued in response to an emergency application that the Trump administration filed with the Supreme Court earlier on April 7. The application requested the high court to block U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’s April 4 order requiring the government to bring back Abrego-Garcia. The judge found that the government had violated a 2019 immigration ruling that barred his removal to El Salvador because of credible threats from the rival Barrio 18 gang. The 2019 ruling was made after Abrego-Garcia was arrested in Maryland and placed in deportation proceedings.
Abrego-Garcia entered the United States illegally in about 2011.
Despite the 2019 ruling, Abrego-Garcia was arrested on March 12 by Homeland Security Investigations, a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Officials cited what they described as his “prominent role” in the MS-13 gang, which the Trump administration had recently designated a foreign terrorist organization. He was placed on a deportation flight three days later, on March 15.
According to ICE official Robert Cerna II, Abrego-Garcia had not been on the original manifest for the flight but was listed as an alternate. As other individuals were removed from the flight, Abrego-Garcia’s name was moved up, and he was added to the final passenger list. The manifest, Cerna said, failed to indicate that Abrego-Garcia had legal protection from removal to El Salvador.
“Through administrative error, Abrego-Garcia was removed from the United States to El Salvador,” Cerna said in the filing. “This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13.”
By Tom Ozimek
