The media lit up yesterday with the order of the Supreme Court in the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an accused MS-13 member mistakingly sent to El Salvador. I have previously said that the Administration should have brought back Garcia immediately and pushed for deportation under existing laws. Yet, in the order, the Court ordered the government to “facilitate” the return without stating what that means.
Last evening, the Court issued the short three-paragraph per curiam opinion in Noem v. Garcia.
After the ruling, many on the left claimed “Supreme Court in a unanimous decision: He has a legal right to be here, and you have to bring him back.”
It is a bit more ambiguous than that. The Court actually warned that the district court could order the government to facilitate but not necessarily “to effectuate” the return.
The application is granted in part and denied in part, subject to the direction of this order. Due to the administrative stay issued by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, the deadline imposed by the District Court has now passed. To that extent, the Government’s emergency application is effectively granted in part and the deadline in the challenged order is no longer effective. The rest of the District Court’s order remains in effect but requires clarification on remand. The order properly requires the Government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador. The intended scope of the term “effectuate” in the District Court’s order is, however, unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority. The District Court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs. For its part, the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps. The order heretofore entered by THE CHIEF JUSTICE is vacated.
So what does that mean? The Court disagrees with many, including the Fourth Circuit, that President Trump had no inherent executive powers to countermand the district court’s order. He clearly does have countervailing powers that have to be weighed more heavily in the matter. The district court is expressly ordered to show “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”
What is left is a legal pushmi-pullyu that seems to be going in both directions at once. What if the Trump Administration says that inquiries were made, but the matter has proven intractable or unresolvable? Crickets.
No one would seriously believe that, but what right does the district court have to manage the relations or communications with a foreign country?
The problem with this shadow docket decision is that there is more shadow than sunlight in its meaning.
#. Well the president of El salvador at a WH press conference today said no. He said García is an el Salvadoran and under his jurisdiction and would not release a gang member to return to the US.
Bondi and Rubio were present and said facilitate means they’d send a plane for him if released.
End of that story.
^^^ Additionally, García was sent to prison and not deported.. there is due process before a prison sentence is imposed..
The circumstances surrounding García are muddied. Even if returned he’d be deported. Would the admin deport to San salvador or another country. As of now García has been repatriated.
Bukele will not release him.
^^^ Garcia broke the law. The outrage is misplaced as the US attempts to explain to so many lawless people that US was a good place because of laws. There’s always someone skirting the edges that ends up bad. Garcia’s brother was already in the US before abrego came in. Cesar Garcia is now a citizen.
The latest adventure in lawlessness are the paroles who were unable to enter due to criminal backgrounds. Once again, judge Talwani doesn’t know parole isn’t part of US immigration law.
Absurdity
Facilitate this judge:
https://x.com/kylenabecker/status/1911185993849282998
Frothing rant to begin early tomorrow.
Maybe she can go to El Salvador and give them a good talking to.
Thank goodness for our Corrupt Democrat-RINO Judiciary who will protect our sacred, holy, and esteemed Criminal Illegal Alien population!
It may be impracticable to bring him back if he’s already dead.
Anon– If he is already dead bring his body back and submit it into evidence in her court.
She can keep it in her chambers until the appeals are exhausted.
“Yet, in the order, the Court ordered the government to “facilitate” the return without stating what that means.”
No. The Court only ordered the government to “facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.”
@hurleybird…
The point is what does it mean to ‘facilitate’.
The US could ask nicely for El Salvador to release him to their custody so he could face yet another immigration judge who will then take in to consideration that he could be deported, and that the gang in question no longer poses a threat.
He is therefore sent to El Salvador… where then the local police can scoop him up and put him in the same jail for his known gang affiliations. Which would be worse for him…
The idea that he would be brought back and not deported is insane.
And then here’s the kicker. He could be found in a state of purgatory. That is to say… he’s remanded back here. Yet he’s not able to be deported because the only country he could be deported to is El Salvador. Unless he waives his right to not be deported there… he could end up spending the rest of his life in jail facing deportation as soon as another country steps up to accept him. (Or he waives his right.)
So which is worse?
Conservatives only believe in due process when an issue affects them
I’m a conservative and I believe in due process when the issue does not affect me (see my comments previous page).
I can see why your handle is “Anonymous.” I wouldn’t want to be identified with stupid statements like that, either.
Another example of an Obama judge showing lack of concern about existing law or the limits of judicial authority.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/04/11/obama-appointed-judge-blocks-deportations-of-over-500k-migrants
This is the same judge who ruled that a boy could be prevented from attending school with a shirt that said THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS.
That issue was settled in the 1969 Tinker decision by the Supreme Court when a school prevented students from wearing peace symbols. The Court said it was protected speech. But this Obama judge completely ignored long standing Supreme Court precedent.
If the Supreme Court doesn’t have legal authority, why does she? She is sawing off the limb she is sitting on.
S. Meyer– “My first consideration is that we pay greater attention to those at the beginning of the chain so that we have apolitical judges who are affine with the Constitution and the law. We must look toward the law schools and demand a greater affinity with US law, culture and the Constitution”
That is the precise point that scholar, Ilya Shapiro, makes in “Lawless’. Critical Legal Theory was the scholarship of the Frankfurt School in Germany and Austria and is essentially Marxist. It has infected many law schools and particularly The Ivies. Professor Shapiro fears that products of those schools imbued with those ideas will destroy our legal system and, maybe, our country. Some federal judges dedicated to the law are beginning to not offer clerkship to graduates of those politicized schools.
Shapiro may be almost too late with his tocsin as now we have clearly visible Obama and Biden judges who seem to have great love of their powers, both genuine and presumed, and little affection for the Constitution and our legal traditions.
Early in our life as a nation lawyers learned by reading Blackstone’s ” Commentaries on the Laws of England” and, if they could get them, Coke and Glanville. It seems obvious that Lincoln and others also benefited from the King James Bible and its potent thoughts and magnificent English. Certainly one can see the Biblical influence in Lincoln’s Second Inaugural which seems almost written in the heavens or by a patriarch.
I have a replica of Blackstone’s original together with a modern copy in two large volumes with case citations.
Our law schools are slipping. I had lunch with two attorneys who, when I mentioned common law, both said that they didn’t think we have common law in this state. Every state except Louisiana is a common law state. Every Canadian province is common law except for Quebec. The two exceptions have Civil law taken from France and tracing back to Justinian. Our Uniform Commercial Code provides for a path to common law when an issue isn’t fully addressed in the Code. I used it once in dealing with a contract subject to a condition precedent. I once reached back to the 1285 Statute of Westminster Ii for a codification of a common law remedy that is still a part of our law. A law dating from more than 200 years before Columbus helped me prevail in a modern court.
When Philip Hambuger’s great “Is Administrative Law Unlawful” book came out I could see its importance at once, having once considered a related idea on a state administrative law matter that, unfortunately, I never presented to a court because of other circumstances. But some commentators criticized it saying the issues had been settled by The Administrative Procedures Act. Anyone thinking that missed the entire grand concept in Hamburger’s masterpiece. But it is gradually gaining influence.
I think that the American lawyers who learned law with Blackstone and by clerking with practicing lawyers may have a had a greater reverence for it than those who are cranked out by academics whose feet seldom touch the ground. Hardly anything has made the danger we are in as visible as the lawfare against Trump and his supporters and now against the elected administration.
I suppose that answers the question of why the left targeted our education system and law schools. When it lost in the 1960s, it didn’t stop. It regrouped, started building from the ground up, and is now working to overturn the very system that protects our freedoms.