A federal appeals court delivered a stern spanking to the Trump administration Thursday, decrying its “shocking” treatment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an MS-13 suspect who was wrongly deported to El Salvador.
Judge Harvie Wilkinson warned that American citizens could be next if the Trump administration prevails in its arguments.
“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order,” he wrote.
He led a unanimous three-judge ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, upholding Judge Paula Xinis’ order that the government reveal what steps it has taken to bring back Mr. Abrego Garcia.
Judge Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee, specifically singled out Judge Xinis for praise, calling her “a fine district judge.”
He urged President Trump’s team to back down from the “crisis” and bow to the courts, warning that the fight could do damage to both branches of government.
And he heaped blame on the administration for the situation.
“The Judiciary will lose much from the constant intimations of its illegitimacy, to which by dent of custom and detachment we can only sparingly reply. The Executive will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant contagions,” he said.
He added: “The Executive may succeed for a time in weakening the courts, but over time history will script the tragic gap between what was and all that might have been, and law in time will sign its epitaph.”
Mr. Abrego Garcia was an illegal immigrant to the U.S. and was ordered deported in 2019, though the immigration judge also found that he couldn’t be sent back to El Salvador in particular because he faced the possibility of violence.
The U.S. put him on a plane anyway on March 15.
The administration originally admitted that was wrong, but more recently officials have suggested the deportation was in fact allowable under the law, given his apparent membership in MS-13.
That finding was established by an immigration judge in 2019, though Judge Xinis has said no such evidence has been presented in her court this year.
She has said Mr. Abrego Garcia’s March 12 arrest was “unconstitutional” and his deportation three days later was “unlawful.”
She ordered the government to “facilitate” his return, and has demanded to know what steps have been taken toward that.
The U.S. says Mr. Abrego Garcia is now in the hands of El Salvador and is beyond the reach of America’s clutches.
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has said the man is a Salvadoran citizen under their control and they will not release him.
Judge Wilkinson said that cannot stand.
“We are told that neither government has the power to act. The result will be to leave matters generally and Abrego Garcia specifically in an interminable limbo without recourse to law of any sort,” he said.
