WASHINGTON (OSV News) ─ Trump administration officials and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on April 14 dismissed arguments that an erroneously deported Maryland man should be returned to the United States from a prison where he is being held in El Salvador.
The case has prompted concern from Catholic immigration advocates, who argued that the man was never charged or convicted of a crime before his deportation or imprisonment. They also pointed to a recent U.S. Supreme Court opinion requiring the government to "facilitate" his return.
In a meeting in the Oval Office, in response to a question about the status of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, Bukele said, "How can I return him to the United States? Like if I smuggle him into the United States?"
"Of course I'm not going to do it. The question is preposterous," he said.
"They'd love to have a criminal released into our country," Trump said of the reporters in the room. "These are sick people."
Although the government acknowledged in court filings that there was an administrative error in deporting Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador, the Trump administration said it was not seeking his return to the U.S. Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has a 5-year-old child, has not been charged with nor convicted of a crime.
Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, a group that works to apply the perspective of Catholic social teaching in policy and practice to the U.S.-Mexico border region, told OSV News, "We're witnessing an erosion of fundamental due process protections."
"The ability of the government to put a human being's safety, future and family in jeopardy, by sending them to a mega-prison in a country that routinely denies human rights, unchecked and far from the reach of the courts, is blatantly counter to American values," Corbett said. "Because the person in question is a migrant, that may not trouble everyone," he said. "But core constitutional due process protections exist for a reason, to protect all of us, and once we trample on them, they might be gone forever."
In an unsigned April 10 opinion with no dissenters listed, the Supreme Court said the government "has cited no basis in law for Abrego Garcia's warrantless arrest, his removal to El Salvador, or his confinement in a Salvadoran prison. Nor could it."
The opinion noted an immigration judge issued a 2019 order expressly prohibiting Abrego Garcia's removal because he faced a "clear probability of future persecution" in El Salvador, and the government "has not challenged the validity of that order." Nor has he ever been charged with or convicted of a crime, the opinion added.
"Instead of hastening to correct its egregious error, the Government dismissed it as an 'oversight,'" the opinion said.
In a statement, a Department of Justice spokesperson argued the opinion acknowledged "deference" to the administration on foreign policy.
"As the Supreme Court correctly recognized, it is the exclusive prerogative of the president to conduct foreign affairs," the statement said. "By directly noting the deference owed to the executive branch, this ruling once again illustrates that activist judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of the president's authority to conduct foreign policy."
In the Oval Office meeting, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he did not understand "the confusion" in the case, arguing that "the foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the president of the United States, not by a court, and no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States."
In March, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for the first time since World War II, granting himself broad authority under a wartime law to deport people allegedly associated with a Venezuelan gang. The administration later deported a group of noncitizens it alleged were members of the criminal organization Tren de Aragua to a notorious El Salvador prison.
Abrego Garcia was among that number, but his lawyers have said there is no evidence he is in that gang, in addition to his legal status to be in the U.S.
J. Kevin Appleby, senior fellow for policy at the Center for Migration Studies of New York and the former director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told OSV News, "This gives us a blueprint on how this administration will circumvent the rulings of the Supreme Court, which is a threat to the balance of power in our democracy. They will interpret any decision to their advantage and not fully comply with the court's ruling."
"To suggest that El Salvador would not return Mr. Abrego Garcia at the request of the U.S. is disingenuous," Appleby said. "If he is not eventually returned, no legal immigrant in this country is safe."
Broadly, Catholic social teaching on immigration seeks to balance three interrelated principles: the right of persons to migrate in order to sustain their lives and those of their families, the right of a country to regulate its borders and immigration, as well as a nation's duty to regulate its borders with justice and mercy.
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Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon.
