The Supreme Court Can’t Save America, but Here’s What It Can Do

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/opinion/supreme-court-trump-abrego-garcia.html

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The collision is coming.

Last Thursday, the Supreme Court held that a Federal District Court judge, Paula Xinis of Maryland, had “properly” ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a father raising three children, from El Salvador’s inhumane Terrorism Confinement Center, where the U.S. government admitted he had been sent by mistake.

The administration dispatched Abrego Garcia, who had lived in the United States under protected status since 2019, to the prison undeterred by a court order forbidding his removal to El Salvador. The Supreme Court’s order contained two directives. First, it advised the lower court to “clarify its directive” to the government. Second, it said the Trump administration “should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken” as well as “the prospect of further steps” it can take to secure Abrego Garcia’s release.

In the days since, the Trump administration has come closer than any administration in my lifetime to directly defying the Supreme Court. It shared no meaningful information with the District Court and appears to be doing exactly nothing to secure Abrego Garcia’s release.

In fact, at an Oval Office meeting between Trump and Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, Bukele seemed eager to keep Abrego Garcia. “Of course I’m not going to do it,” he told reporters, and he compared returning him to smuggling “a terrorist into the United States.”

Abrego Garcia, by the way, has not been convicted of any crime in the United States and there is no evidence that he’s a terrorist.

It should be noted as well that Trump lied to the American people about the Supreme Court’s order, claiming it was a unanimous victory when in reality the court decided against his administration, with no dissents.