Chief SCOTUS Justice Pauses Order to Return Maryland Man

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts agreed Monday to pause a midnight deadline for the Trump administration to return a Maryland man mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador. The Justice Department argued in an emergency appeal to the justices that US District Judge Paula Xinis overstepped her authority when she ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the United States. The administration has conceded that Abrego Garcia should not have been sent to El Salvador because an immigration judge found he likely would face persecution by local gangs. But he is no longer in US custody and the government has no way to get him back, the administration argued.

Xinis gave the administration until just before midnight Tuesday to "facilitate and effectuate" Abrego Garcia's return, the AP reports. "The district court's injunction—which requires Abrego Garcia's release from the custody of a foreign sovereign and return to the United States by midnight on Monday—is patently unlawful," Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court papers. The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, denied the administration's request for a stay. "There is no question that the government screwed up here," Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote in a brief opinion accompanying the unanimous denial. The lawyer who admitted the government made a mistake has been suspended.

Xinis wrote that the decision to arrest him and send him to El Salvador appears to be "wholly lawless," explaining that little to no evidence supports a "vague, uncorroborated" allegation that Abrego Garcia was once an MS-13 member. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national who has never been charged or convicted of any crime, was detained by immigration agents and deported last month. He had a permit from DHS to legally work in the US and was a sheet metal apprentice pursuing a journeyman license, his attorney said. His wife is a US citizen. In a statement, his union, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers—SMART—said it is "fighting to ensure he receives the treatment he is granted under law." This story has been updated with Roberts' ruling. (More deportation stories.)