The Trump administration is putting the Supreme Court through its paces with “emergency” applications after a POTUS record for executive orders being issued in the first months of Trump 2.0, many of them resulting in legal challenges.
(The SCOTUS emergency docket currently lists Trump v. Wilcox, Trump v. Washington, Trump v. CASA, Trump v. New Jersey, and many more.)
Trump’s moves have been frequently stymied so far by lower courts, forcing him to appeal his cases at the Supreme Court where 6-3 the conservative majority has given him some early wins — or at least delays.
But in Noem v. Abrego Garcia, a unanimous decision by the nine justices appeared to support a lower court’s ruling that the Trump administration — and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — cannot and should not leave a Maryland man in a prison in El Salvador after admitting that the U.S. mistakenly sent him there.
(The Trump administration claimed, implausibly, that it could not bring Abrego Garcia back, despite its mistake in deporting and imprisoning him.)
Even after the Supreme Court decision, the Trump administration is arguing that the district court judge, Paula Xinis, cannot force the timing or compel certain actions, citing executive branch deference mentioned in the SCOTUS order and writing: “that deference requires that the Executive be given a meaningful opportunity to review the Supreme Court’s decision before it is ordered to report what steps it will take in response to that decision.”
Decrying what many view as the administration’s overt violation of core American principles, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) asserted that “there is a special place in HELL for the people who are willing to argue to the Supreme Court that the man they MISTAKENLY sent to an El Salvador prison should stay there.”
There is a special place in HELL for the people who are willing to argue to the Supreme Court that the man they MISTAKENLY sent to an El Salvador prison should stay there.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) April 10, 2025
[NOTE: The SCOTUS order confirmed the district court “properly requires the Government 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.”]