To Obama-appointed district Judge Paula Xinis to “facilitate and effectuate” Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s return to the US by Monday night, saying: "Because the United States has no control over Abrego Garcia, however, Defendants have no independent authority to “effectuate” his return to the United States, any more than they would have the power to follow a court order commanding them to “effectuate” the end of the war in Ukraine, or a return of the hostages from Gaza;"
Garcia, a citizen of El Salvador, who is portrayed as a "Maryland father" in most news reports, entered the US illegally in 2011. In 2019, he was arrested on allegations of membership in the violent Salvadoran gang called Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. At that time, he applied for political asylum, which was denied. He was given an order of removal, but a judge put his deportation on hold on the grounds that he might be in danger if he returned to El Salvador. In early March, Garcia was arrested and put on a plane to El Salvador and the Terrorist Confinement Facility, CECOT.
His attorneys sued, and a judge ordered the Trump administration to return Garcia to Maryland. In her order, the judge called the deportation “an illegal act.”
We can see that Judge Xinis was much more interested in burnishing her Resistance cred than dealing with a legal case.
When White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt reacted by saying, “We suggest the Judge contact [El Salvador’s] President [Nayib] Bukele because we are unaware of the judge having jurisdiction or authority over the country of El Salvador,”
The government's argument is that Garcia had a final deportation order, so the district court judge erred in hearing the case because it was outside her jurisdiction.
Even putting aside these fundamental defects, the order below also runs into a statutory bar. Section 1252(g) strips district courts of jurisdiction to review “any cause or claim by or on behalf of any alien arising from the decision or action by the Attorney General to … execute removal orders 11 against any alien” under the INA, except as otherwise provided in § 1252. 8 U.S.C. § 1252(g) (emphasis added). This is such a suit. The district court thus lacked jurisdiction over this case, and lacked authority to issue its order.
The government's brief conclusively takes apart every aspect of Garcia's case. He had a deportation order; he had MS-13 connections that make him ineligible to enter the US; and the judge not only doesn't have the clout to make El Salvador send him back to the US, she isn't legally allowed to hear the case.
This case is headed to the Fourth Circuit, where we can hope they will give Judge Xinis's desire to possess magical powers short shrift.
Read much more:
https://redstate.com/streiff/2025/04/05/trumps-justice-department-sends-brutally-honest-saying-judge-cant-undo-a-perfectly-good-deportation-n2187538
I still think congress needs to strip her and the other judges of their clerks, not pay the electric bill, no copy paper or phones and reassign their court room/chambers to a deep dark storage room of the basement that smells of rat urine and allow them to adjudicate to their hearts content...
ReplyDeleteAmen Cederq. I wish we knew someone that knew how to type up an EO and was in a position to slip it into the pile on Trump's desk. I agree with your entire comment.
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