Appeals Court Denies White House Effort To Block Abrego Garcia’s Return From El Salvador

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An ongoing legal and political debate continues to rage across the U.S. regarding the fate of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the El Salvadoran national deported by the Trump administration earlier this year.

After the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the White House to facilitate the release of Garcia, whom the administration insists is a member of the violent MS-13 gang, Trump pushed back against the ruling and the media’s interpretation thereof:

In the latest twist, a federal appeals court has shut down, at least temporarily, the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent a lower court’s order calling for Abrego Garcia to be released from the Central American prison

As Reason reported:

When the federal district judge overseeing Abrego Garcia’s case attempted to enforce the Supreme Court’s order, the Trump administration requested an emergency stay from the Fourth Circuit Court.

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, a Ronald Reagan appointee to the Fourth Circuit, wrote that allowing the administration’s passive interpretation of “facilitate” would “reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood.”

“It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter,” Wilkinson wrote. “But in this case, it is not hard at all. 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. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.”

“This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear,” Wilkinson warned.

Despite the legal headwinds, the White House continues making the case that Abrego Garcia deserved to be deported:

The Hill also reported on the recent court ruling:

The 4th Circuit declined to put Xinis’s ruling on hold just one day after the administration filed the appeal, a swift order that came without waiting for Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to file their response.

“The relief the government is requesting is both extraordinary and premature. While we fully respect the Executive’s robust assertion of its Article II powers, we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision,” U.S. Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel.

It marks the second time the 4th Circuit has rejected the Trump administration in the case. The administration could now attempt to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court.

Here’s a recap of the evidence presented against Abrego Garcia thus far by the Trump administration:



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