The Supreme Court intervened on Monday evening to block what the Trump administration labeled an unprecedented judicial power grab by temporarily halting a federal judge’s order demanding that the government return deported MS-13 gang member Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia from a high-security prison in El Salvador. Chief Justice John Roberts granted an emergency administrative stay, providing the administration with additional time to contest the lower court’s ruling, which required that the Salvadoran national with verified gang ties be brought back to the United States by midnight Monday, according to Axios.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the administration’s lead legal representative, filed the appeal early Monday, contending that U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis had exceeded her authority and interfered with the president’s power to manage foreign policy and national security. At the heart of the legal dispute is Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who was previously deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to the Department of Justice, he is “a verified member of MS-13,” citing an immigration judge’s determination that a “past, proven, and reliable source of information” confirmed his gang affiliation.
Although Abrego Garcia was granted withholding of removal to El Salvador in 2019, the Trump administration argued that this relief was nullified after MS-13 was designated as a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year. Sauer stressed that “members of MS-13 are no longer eligible for withholding of removal.” The emergency application submitted to the Supreme Court by Sauer described the lower court’s injunction as “remarkable,” saying the ruling “requires the United States to persuade El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia—a native of El Salvador detained in El Salvador—on a judicially mandated clock.”
“The Constitution charges the President, not federal district courts, with the conduct of foreign diplomacy and protecting the Nation against foreign terrorists,” Sauer wrote. “This order sets the United States up for failure.” She further argued that the U.S. government “does not control the sovereign nation of El Salvador, nor can it compel El Salvador to follow a federal judge’s bidding.”
The underlying order from Xinis directed the Trump administration to “facilitate and effectuate the return of Plaintiff Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States by no later than 11:59 PM on Monday, April 7, 2025.” But the administration blasted the ruling as an unconstitutional overreach into foreign policy, noting that “district courts would effectively have extraterritorial jurisdiction over the United States’ diplomatic relations with the whole world” if this precedent were allowed to stand.