Appeals court calls Trump administration’s defiance in deportation case “shocking”

A federal appeals court rejected the U.S. government’s emergency request to halt a lower court’s order requiring action in the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who was deported in violation of a judicial order and is now being held in a high-security prison in El Salvador.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit denied on Thursday the government’s request for a stay and a writ of mandamus, calling the government’s position “both extraordinary and premature.” The court said that the Executive Branch cannot avoid legal obligations by transferring custody abroad and then claiming there is no remedy available.

In its ruling, the appeals court called the government’s position “shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

“It is not hard at all,” the court wrote. “The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.”

The case centers on Abrego Garcia, who was deported from Maryland despite a 2019 immigration court ruling that barred his removal due to the risk of persecution. The Department of Homeland Security later acknowledged the deportation violated that order, calling it an “administrative error,” but argued that Abrego Garcia poses a public safety threat due to alleged gang affiliations. He is currently being held at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador.

The Supreme Court declined to fully intervene in the case last week but left intact a district court ruling that directs the U.S. government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release and handle his case as if the deportation had never occurred. The matter was returned to a lower court for further clarification.

The Fourth Circuit’s ruling on Thursday interprets the Supreme Court’s language as a mandate for affirmative action—not symbolic compliance. “‘Facilitate’ is an active verb,” the court said, rejecting the government’s argument that it had satisfied its obligations by simply lifting domestic barriers to Abrego Garcia’s return. “The government’s argument that all it must do is ‘remove any domestic barriers to [Abrego Garcia’s] return’… is not well taken.”

The court added that allowing the Executive Branch to deport individuals in violation of court orders and disclaim further responsibility would “reduce the rule of law to lawlessness.” It further warned that such logic, if accepted, could eventually justify the deportation of U.S. citizens without recourse.

In public remarks earlier this week, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele rejected any suggestion that his government would return Abrego Garcia to the United States. “How can I return him to the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it,” Bukele said during a press briefing at the White House. “I don’t have the power to return him.”

U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said on Wednesday that Abrego Garcia has been repeatedly identified as a member of the MS-13 gang by multiple sources, including a Maryland gang unit, ICE officers, a confidential informant, an immigration judge, and the Board of Immigration Appeals. However, one of the documents she shared also confirmed that Abrego Garcia has no known criminal record in the United States.

Abrego Garcia has denied any gang affiliation and says he lived peacefully in the U.S. for more than a decade. No charges had been filed against him.

The Fourth Circuit panel, consisting of Judges Wilkinson, King, and Thacker, concluded that while courts must respect the Executive’s authority over foreign affairs, the government is not permitted to ignore binding judicial orders. “The respect that courts must accord the Executive must be reciprocated by the Executive’s respect for the courts,” the ruling said.