In what the Trump administration described as an unprecedented judicial power grab, the Supreme Court intervened Monday night to temporarily suspend a federal judge’s ruling requiring the U.S. government to repatriate a deported MS-13 gang member from a high-security prison in El Salvador.
As the administration battles a lower court’s decision to repatriate Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national with confirmed gang ties, to the United States by midnight Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts granted an emergency administrative stay, according to Axios.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the leading legal representative for the Trump administration, filed the appeal early Monday, charging U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis with exceeding her authority and interfering with the president’s ability to oversee national security and international affairs.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an El Salvadorian native who was previously deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is at the core of the legal dispute. He is “a verified member of MS-13,” the Department of Justice said, referring to an immigration judge’s ruling that a “past, proven, and reliable source of information” established his gang involvement.
The Trump government contended that the relief was no longer valid following MS-13’s designation as a foreign terrorist group earlier this year, even though Abrego Garcia had been granted withholding of removal to El Salvador in 2019. “Members of MS-13 are no longer eligible for withholding of removal,” stressed Solicitor General Sauer.
While describing the lower court’s injunction as “remarkable,” Sauer’s emergency motion to the Supreme Court stated that the decision “requires the United States to persuade El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia—a native of El Salvador detained in El Salvador—on a judicially mandated clock.”
According to Sauer, “the President, not federal district courts, are charged by the Constitution with conducting foreign diplomacy and protecting the Nation against foreign terrorists.” “The United States is set up for failure by this order.”
The administration really contended that the United States government “cannot compel El Salvador to follow the bidding of a federal judge, nor does it control the sovereign nation of El Salvador.”
“Facilitate and effectuate the return of Plaintiff Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States by no later than 11:59 PM on Monday, April 7, 2025,” according to the underlying ruling issued by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis.
However, the Trump administration denounced the decision as an unlawful intrusion into foreign affairs, pointing out that if this precedent were upheld, “district courts would effectively have extraterritorial jurisdiction over the United States’ diplomatic relations with the whole world.”
“The public interest supports vacating the order directing Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States,” the administration wrote in the filing, citing public safety concerns as well. They cited a prior immigration court decision that found Abrego Garcia “failed to meet his burden of demonstrating that his release from custody would not pose a danger to others” and refused his bond because of his gang affiliations.
The Supreme Court’s pause indicates that the justices may be likely to support the Trump administration on the more general issue of court meddling in immigration and diplomacy, but it does not rule on the case’s merits.
