‘Tortured reading’: Trump team slammed for twisting Supreme Court order to justify move
President Donald Trump has turned a unanimous Supreme Court order for his administration to facilitate the return of wrongly deported Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an infamous Salvadoran prison on its head to justify why he doesn't have to do anything, wrote Hugo Lowell in a scathing analysis for The Guardian published on Monday evening.
This follows Trump's White House visit with Nayib Bukele, El Salvador's president, who also refused to lift a finger to return Abrego Garcia, even though he was married to a U.S. citizen, living in America with a work permit, and had no criminal record. During the meeting, Trump aide Stephen Miller said, “The ruling solely stated that if this individual at El Salvador’s sole discretion was sent back to our country, we could deport him a second time.”
That's not actually what the ruling said, wrote Lowell.
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"Miller’s remarks went beyond the tortured reading offered by the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, who also characterized the Supreme Court order as only requiring the administration to provide transportation to Abrego García if released by El Salvador," wrote Lowell.
"The fact that the US is paying El Salvador to detain deportees it sends to the notorious Cecot prison undercut the notion that the administration lacked the power to return Abrego García into US custody," he wrote. "The case started when Abrego García was detained by police in 2019 in Maryland, outside a Home Depot, with several other men, and asked about a murder. He denied knowledge of a crime and repeatedly denied that he was part of a gang. Abrego García was subsequently put in immigration proceedings, where officials argued they believed he was part of the MS-13 gang in New York based on his Chicago Bulls gear and on the word of a confidential informant."
Ultimately, an immigration judge appointed by the previous Trump administration said he could be a gang member — but could not be sent to El Salvador because he would likely be in mortal danger from definitive gang members if deported. To this day, he has not been convicted of any crime, gang-related or otherwise.
"Miller appeared to be suggesting that the US could not force the actions of El Salvador, a sovereign nation," wrote Lowell. "But he then said the Supreme Court said neither the president nor the secretary of State could forcibly retrieve a citizen of El Salvador from El Salvador - which the order did not say."