Monday, the Trump administration submitted a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court in an effort to overturn the decision of a federal judge in the United States to repatriate a Salvadoran migrant who was wrongfully deported last month. Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29, who was living in the eastern state of Maryland, was among more than 200 people sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador under President Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented migrants.
After Justice Department lawyers acknowledged that Abrego Garcia was deported as a result of an "administrative error," US District Judge Paula Xinis stipulated that he be returned to the United States by 11:59 p.m. on Monday. A federal appeals court upheld the decision, with Judge Harvie Wilkinson writing: “There is no question that the government screwed up here.
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The repatriation order was branded "unprecedented and indefensible" by the Trump administration when it was brought before the conservative-dominated Supreme Court on Monday. In a filing to the high court, it slammed the ruling as a “demand that the United States let a member of a foreign terrorist organization into America tonight.
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Judge Xinis rejected the White House's claim that Abrego Garcia, who is married to a US citizen, is a member of the Salvadoran gang MS-13 because there is no evidence to support this claim. Abrego Garcia had been living in the United States under protected legal status since 2019, when a judge ruled he should not be deported because he could be harmed in El Salvador.
The Trump administration conceded again in its Supreme Court application that Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador was an error, but added he could still be removed “anywhere else in the world.”
On March 15, three plane loads of undocumented migrants were transported to El Salvador from the United States.
The Trump administration alleged that most of the deportees were part of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, but some attorneys have said that their clients were not members, had committed no crimes and were targeted largely because of their tattoos.
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