“Abrego Garcia was illegally deported in March to the infamous CECOT prison in his home country of El Salvador, flouting a 2019 U.S. court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution. . . .
“The Supreme Court has unanimously ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody so that he can have a hearing. But the administration has so far defied the court, hiding behind the autocratic government of El Salvador, which it claims is unwilling to send him back. I expect that a phone call from the White House would return Abrego Garcia to his family, who just happen to be American citizens. But Trump has vowed never to do even that much. . . .
“The courts have been responsive to Abrego Garcia’s predicament. The Supreme Court held 9-0 that the administration must take steps to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s ‘release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.’. . .
“The Abrego Garcia case, like the cases of the other illegally deported migrants, presents an assault on the entire constitutional system, where the courts have the obligation to make the executive branch comply with the law.
“As Justice Sonia Sotomayor put it in a separate statement, “the Government must comply with its obligation to provide Abrego Garcia with ‘due process of law,’ including notice and an opportunity to be heard, in any future proceedings.”
Former U.S. Attorney and legal analyst Joyce White Vance said it: “These cases are about making sure that, American citizen or not, criminal or not, peoples’ right to have the day in court that the Constitution guarantees them is honored. That’s all. But it’s everything.” — If Trump Flouts the Abrego Garcia Rulings, the Constitution Is Done, James Zurin, The Hill, 4/22/25 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: It’s most interesting how illegal alien advocates just recently have such a profound concern for the Constitution. They didn’t have it when Barack Obama violated the constitutional separation of powers by decreeing amnesty for illegal aliens in the DACA category. Nor did they care when Joe Biden did the same thing when he twisted the Congress-passed law of parole to welcome a floods of illegal aliens to the U.S.
But now these advocates are all in a dither about the welfare of Abrego Garcia, an illegal alien from El Salvador, someone credibly tied to the murderous MS-13 gang. The alien advocates claim that Garcia was denied due process before being deported to home country. If fact, an immigration judge ruled that Garcia could not show that “his release from custody would not pose a danger to others, as the evidence shows that he is a verified member of MS-13.” Garcia appealed that decision, but the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) upheld it and affirmed the judge’s “danger ruling.”
To stay in the country Garcia filed an asylum claim. Significantly he didn’t make that application until after he had been in the country for seven years. Despite weak evidence that he faced danger from a gang in El Salvador, granted a decision “withholding” deportation. The Trump Administration maintained that this alleged threat no longer existed because the gang in question had ceased to exist. It then moved to deport Garcia.
Despite justification for doing so, the White House said it made an “administrative error” in carrying out the deportation. Citing this lapse, the Supreme Court ordered the Trump Administration to “facilitate” Garcia’s return. The problem here is that El Salvador refuses to release him. Can the Court compel President Trump to make demands on El Salvador? Doing that would usurp the constitutional authority of the president to conduct foreign policy.
In any case, Garcia did get due process, though not as much as his supporters wanted. To many of them, the rule of law means rules made up by radical lawyers and judges to delay and sabotage the enforcement of immigration law. Most are Democrats who—following the advice their strategist Robert Creamer—view illegal aliens, after amnesty, as a voting bloc for their party. Gangbanger Abrego Garcia is a poster boy for their project.