Latest news with #KilmarÁbregoGarcía
The Guardian
27-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
A hidden measure in the Republican budget bill would crown Trump king
If enacted, Donald Trump's Big Ugly Bill as it emerged on Thursday from the House of Representatives would result in the largest redistribution of income and wealth in American history – from the poor and working class to the rich. Hidden within the bill is also a provision that would allow Trump to crown himself king. For months now, Trump has been trying to act like a king by ignoring court rulings against him. The supreme court has told Trump to 'facilitate' the return of Kilmar Ábrego García, a legal resident of the United States who even the Trump regime admits was erroneously sent to a brutal prison in El Salvador. Trump has done nothing. Lower federal courts have ordered him to stop deporting migrants without giving them a chance to know the charges against them and have the charges and evidence reviewed by a neutral judge or magistrate – the minimum of due process. Again, nothing. Judge James Boasberg, chief judge of the federal district court for the District of Columbia, issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump regime from flying individuals to the prison in El Salvador without due process. Judge Boasberg has found that the Trump regime has willfully disregarded his order. Is there anything that the courts can do in response to Trump's open defiance of judges and justices? They have only one power to make their orders stick. They can hold federal officials in contempt, and enforce such contempt citations by fining or jailing them. It's a radical remedy, rarely used. But several federal judges are at their wits' end. Boasberg said that if Trump's legal team does not give the dozens of Venezuelan men sent to the Salvadoran prison a chance to legally challenge their removal, he'll begin contempt proceedings against the administration. In a separate case, the US district court judge Paula Xinis has demanded that the Trump administration explain why it is not complying with the supreme court order to 'facilitate' the release of Ábrego García. Xinis has even questioned whether the administration intends to comply with the order at all, citing a statement from homeland security chief Kristi Noem that Ábrego García 'will never be allowed to return to the United States'. According to Xinis, 'That sounds to me like an admission. That's about as clear as it can get.' So what's the next step? Will the supreme court and lower courts hold the administration in contempt and enforce the contempt citations? Trump and his Republican stooges in Congress apparently anticipated this. Hidden inside their Big Ugly Bill is a provision intended to block the courts from using contempt to enforce its orders. It reads: 'No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued … ' Translated: no federal court may enforce a contempt citation. The measure would make most existing injunctions – in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases and others – unenforceable. Its only purpose is to weaken the power of the federal courts. As Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Berkeley School of Law dean and distinguished professor of law, notes, this provision would eliminate any restraint on Trump. 'Without the contempt power, judicial orders are meaningless and can be ignored. There is no way to understand this except as a way to keep the Trump administration from being restrained when it violates the Constitution or otherwise breaks the law … 'This would be a stunning restriction on the power of the federal courts. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the contempt power is integral to the authority of the federal courts. Without the ability to enforce judicial orders, they are rendered mere advisory opinions which parties are free to disregard.' In other words, with this single measure, Trump will have crowned himself king. If it is enacted, no Congress and no court could stop him. Even if a future Congress were to try, it could not do so without the power of the courts to enforce their hearings, investigations, subpoenas and laws. The gross unfairness of Trump's Big Ugly Bill is bad enough. It would worsen the nation's already near-record inequalities of income and wealth. But the provision inside the bill that neuters the federal courts is even worse. It would remove the last remaining constraint on Trump, and thereby effectively end American democracy. Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Congressman Ivey expresses anger after failing to meet with deported resident in El Salvador visit
Maryland Democratic Congressman Glenn Ivey said Monday he was disappointed and angry after being unable to meet with Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran resident of Maryland who was deported to El Salvador and detained in a prison in Santa Ana, northwest of the capital, after first spending time at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Who is Kilmar Ábrego García, the man wrongly deported to El Salvador?
The ongoing legal saga of Kilmar Ábrego García, a man wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, has become a flashpoint as Donald Trump tests the limits of his executive power and continues with his plans for mass deportations. On Tuesday, a federal judge sharply rebuked the Trump administration for taking no steps to secure Ábrego García's release despite a supreme court order last week ordering the administration to facilitate his return to the US. The administration previously conceded Ábrego García's deportation was an 'administrative error', but it has since refused to bring him back and dug in on its contention that it should not be responsible for his repatriation. Here's what to know about the case. Ábrego García, 29, is a Salvadorian immigrant who entered the US illegally around 2011 because he and his family were facing threats by local gangs. In 2019, he was detained by police outside a Home Depot in Maryland, 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. He 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. A US immigration judge granted him protection from deportation to El Salvador because he was likely to face gang persecution. He was released and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) did not appeal the decision or try to deport him to another country. Related: US judge finds probable cause to hold Trump officials in contempt over alien act deportations Ábrego García was living in Maryland with his wife, a US citizen, and has had a work permit since 2019. The couple are parents to their son and her two children from a previous relationship. Ábrego García was stopped and detained by Ice officers on 12 March and questioned about alleged gang affiliation. He was deported on 15 March on one of three high-profile deportation flights to El Salvador. That flight also included Venezuelans whom the government accuses of being gang members and assumed special powers to expel without a hearing. Ábrego García is currently being detained in the Center for Terrorism Confinement (Cecot), a controversial mega-prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, known for its harsh conditions. The US is currently paying El Salvador $6m to house people who it alleges are members of the Tren de Aragua gang for a year. His wife, Jennifer Vásquez Sura, said she has not spoken to him since he was flown to El Salvador and imprisoned. The US district judge Paula Xinis directed the Trump administration on 4 April to 'facilitate and effectuate' the return of Ábrego García, in response to a lawsuit filed by the man and his family challenging the legality of his deportation. The supreme court unanimously upheld the directive on 10 April. In an unsigned decision, the court said the judge's order 'properly requires the government to 'facilitate' Ábrego García's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador'. Related: Supreme court orders US to help return man wrongly deported to El Salvador However, the supreme court said the additional requirement to 'effectuate' his return was unclear and may exceed the judge's authority. It directed Xinis to clarify the directive 'with due regard for the deference owed to the executive branch in the conduct of foreign affairs'. Xinis admonished the government in a hearing on 11 April, saying it was 'extremely troubling' that the administration had failed to comply with a court order to provide details on Ábrego García's whereabouts and status. On Saturday, the Trump administration confirmed Ábrego García was alive and confined in El Salvador's mega-prison, Cecot. Xinis once again, on Tuesday, criticized justice department officials for not complying with the supreme court's order, saying 'to date, nothing has been done'. She gave the government two weeks to produce details of their efforts to return Ábrego García to US soil. The White House has cast Ábrego García as an MS-13 gang member and asserted that US courts lack jurisdiction over the matter because the Salvadoran national is no longer in the US. Earlier this month, the Trump administration acknowledged that Ábrego García was deported as a result of an 'administrative error'. An immigration judge had previously prohibited the federal government from deporting him to El Salvador in 2019 regardless of whether he was a member of the MS-13 gang. The justice department has said it interpreted the court's order to 'facilitate' Ábrego García's return as only requiring them to 'remove any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede the alien's ability to return here'. The US attorney general, Pam Bondi, has characterized the court's order as only requiring the administration to provide transportation to Ábrego García if released by El Salvador. 'That's up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That's up to them,' Bondi said. 'The supreme court ruled that if El Salvador wants to return him, we would 'facilitate' it, meaning provide a plane.' Justice department lawyers have argued that asking El Salvador to return Ábrego García should be considered 'foreign relations' and therefore outside the scope of the courts. But the administration's argument that it lacks the power to return Ábrego García into US custody is undercut by the US paying El Salvador to detain deportees it sends to Cecot prison. Ábrego García's attorneys have said there is no evidence he was in MS-13. The allegation was based on a confidential informant's claim in 2019 that Ábrego Garcia was a member of a chapter in New York, where he has never lived. Ábrego García had never been charged with or convicted of any crime, according to his lawyers. He had a permit from the Department of Homeland Security to legally work in the US, his attorneys said. The Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday where he hopes to visit Ábrego García. He said the government of El Salvador had not responded to his request to visit Cecot. Van Hollen told the Guardian: 'This is a Maryland man. His family's in Maryland, and he's been caught up in this absolutely outrageous situation where the Trump administration admitted in court that he was erroneously abducted from the United States and placed in this notorious prison in El Salvador in violation of all his due process rights.' Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, has said that he would not order the return of Ábrego García because that would be tantamount to 'smuggling' him into the US. During a meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Monday, Bukele was asked whether he would help to return Ábrego García. 'The question is preposterous,' he replied. 'How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I'm not going to do it.' He added that he would not release Ábrego García into El Salvador either. 'I'm not very fond of releasing terrorists into the country.'
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
A battle looms over rule of law as some courts start to flex their muscles against Trump
The US supreme court and other federal courts have begun flexing their muscles to push back on Donald Trump's efforts to defy judicial orders, escalating a hugely consequential battle over the rule of law. The supreme court issued a significant order early Saturday morning blocking the federal government from removing people from the United States who had been detained in northern Texas. Separately, US district Judge James Boasberg has found probable cause to hold the government in contempt for defying his orders to halt deportations. In another case, the US district Judge Paula Xinis has forced the government to provide daily updates in its efforts to comply with court orders to 'facilitate' the return of Kilmar Ábrego García – the man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador. It is a dynamic that underscores how a constitutional crisis between Trump and the courts is likely to be a push and pull between the government and judges that is simmering through the legal system and could very well break it. 'The president is testing how much the judiciary still meaningfully constrains him,' Ben Raderstorf, a policy associate at the watchdog group Protect Democracy wrote in a blog post titled 'there is no rubicon'. Whether the courts can force compliance with their orders is an essential question for American democracy, where a pillar of the rule of law is the willingness of litigants to accept court rulings, especially the ones they disagree with. 'The quality of judicial independence that federal judges have enjoyed throughout most of our history has depended much more on norms than it has on rules,' said Stephen Burbank, a professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. 'Of course, a major concern from that perspective is that Trump pays no attention to norms.' Trump said on Tuesday he did not think due process was a requirement before deporting someone. 'Look, we are getting some very bad people, killers, murderers, drug dealers, really bad people, the mentally ill, the mentally insane, they emptied out insane asylums into our country, we're getting them out. And a judge can't say: 'No, you have to have a trial,'' he said. 'No, we are going to have a very dangerous country if we are not allowed to do what we are entitled to do.' In its Saturday ruling, the supreme court had temporarily blocked the administration from deporting people being held in a detention center in Anson, Texas, under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA). At the beginning of April, the supreme court had allowed deportations under AEA to move forward as long as migrants received adequate notice they were being deported under the law. 'The notice must be afforded within a reasonable time and in such a manner as will allow them to actually' challenge their deportation prior to it occurring, the supreme court said. But in filings last week, lawyers for detainees challenging the Texas deportations told the US supreme court their clients were being presented with English-only notices informing them they were being deported under the AEA, but no information about how to challenge it. In an extraordinary move, the US supreme court issued a decision temporarily halting the deportations before a lower court, the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit, had even ruled on the matter. The court moved to intervene quickly even though a government lawyer had said in a hearing in a related case on Friday that there were no plans for planes to take off that day. 'In a world in which a majority of the justices were willing to take these kinds of representations at face value, there might've been no need to intervene overnight Friday evening; the justices could've taken at least some of Saturday to try to sort things out before handing down their decision,' Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown, wrote in his Substack newsletter One First. 'This may seem like a technical point, but it underscores how seriously the court, or at least a majority of it, took the urgency of the matter.' However significant, the US supreme court's ruling is only temporary and the government is likely to ask it to lift it and resume the deportations. The court's response is likely to set off the next round of its fight with Trump. Some conservative voices, including Sean Davis, CEO of the Federalist, and Trump ally Mike Davis, have already started attacking the justices on the court. 'If the Supreme Court is going to ignore the law and the Constitution, then the president is obligated to ignore the Supreme Court and put it in its place,' Sean Davis said in a post on X on Saturday. 'When we're done deporting illegals, it's time to start deporting rogue judges,' he wrote in another post. 'Let's hope our Supreme Court justices get their heads out of their asses. They wear robes, not capes,' Mike Davis, who runs the Article III project, a conservative group focused on the courts, wrote on X. Steve Deace, a prominent conservative talkshow host, also suggested Trump was entitled to ignore the courts. 'Essentially courts are claiming you can bypass due process to illegally invade America, but then must be granted due process to have your invasion repelled. That is not a country, but judicial insurrection to undo the last election. Trump should ignore it and do what he was empowered by the sovereign will of the people to do,' he wrote in a post on X. Outside of the supreme court, Judge Boasberg laid out a series of escalating actions he could take to punish the Trump officials. (An appellate court has paused the contempt process while the Trump administration appeals.) In the case before Xinis, the administration seems to be doing whatever it can to avoid complying with orders that it 'facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador'. On 10 April, Xinis ordered the government to take 'all available steps to facilitate the return of Ábrego García to the United States as soon as possible'. Deploying one of her judicial tools, she ordered the government to provide daily updates to her on what it was doing to comply with that order. When the government made it clear it was doing nothing to comply, she ordered government officials to respond to written questions from the plaintiffs and for key officials to sit for depositions. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said in a court filing on Tuesday that the government was essentially ignoring that order as well. The Trump administration appealed Xinis's 10 April order to the US court of appeals for the fourth circuit. A panel of judges on the circuit denied the administration's request to halt the lower court's rulings. And in a striking opinion, Judge Harvie Wilkinson, a Ronald Reagan appointee once considered a top contender for the supreme court, warned of all the damage that could come if the executive branch continued to defy the judiciary. 'Now the branches come too close to grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both. This is a losing proposition all around,' Wilkinson wrote. '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. '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.'
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Senator says trip to El Salvador was to support Kilmar Ábrego García's due process
Senator Chris Van Hollen, who travelled to El Salvador last week to meet Kilmar Ábrego García, the man at the center of a wrongful deportation dispute, said on Sunday that his trip was to support Ábrego García's right to due process because if that was denied then everyone's constitutional rights were threatened in the US. The White House has claimed Ábrego García is a member of the MS-13 gang though he has not been charged with any gang-related crimes and the supreme court has ordered his return to the US be facilitated. But in an interview with ABC's This Week, Van Hollen, a Maryland senator, stressed that the government had presented no evidence linking Ábrego García to MS-13 in federal court. 'Mr President,' the senator said, 'take your facts to court, don't put everything out on social media.' Related: Kilmar Ábrego García 'traumatized' by threats in prison, Maryland senator says Speaking on CNN's State of the Union, Van Hollen contested Trump's 'argument that you can't fight gang violence and uphold people's constitutional rights at the same time. That's a very dangerous view. If we deny the constitutional rights of this one man, it threatens the constitutional rights of everyone in America.' Van Hollen, who returned to the US on Friday after meeting with Ábrego García, has accused administration officials of lying about Ábrego García's case in an attempt to distract from questions about whether his rights were violated when he was deported to El Salvador last month. 'I'm for whatever gives him his due process rights,' Van Hollen told the outlet. 'An immigration judge in 2019 said he should not be deported to El Salvador because that would put his life at risk from gang members like MS-13. 'The Trump administration did not appeal that immigration judge's order to keep him in the United States. He is here legally now, has a work permit, is a sheet metal worker, has a family, and three kids,' he said. 'I am fine with whatever result happens as long as he is given his due process rights under the constitution,' Van Hollen added. The administration has said Ábrego García's deportation was an 'administrative error' and the supreme court has ordered that the government 'facilitate' his return, setting up a contentious debate of what that means in practical terms. As Van Hollen made the rounds of political shows on Sunday, he expanded on the theme of a constitutional crisis. On NBC's Meet the Press he was asked if the US was in constitutional crisis with the Trump administration. 'Oh, yes, we are. They are very much flouting the courts as we speak. As the courts have said, facilitating his return means something more than doing nothing, and they are doing nothing. Yes, they're absolutely in violation of the court's orders as we speak,' he said. 'My whole point here is that if you deprive one man of his constitutional rights, you threaten the constitutional rights of everybody,' Van Hollen said later to the Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream. 'I would hope that all of us would understand that principle – you're a lawyer. I'm not vouching for the individual, I'm vouching for his rights.' On ABC's This Week, Van Hollen was asked if he had walked into a trap when García was brought to his hotel for an hour-long meeting and the pair were pictured with margaritas. The senator said the drinks were placed there by a government official for the photos, and not touched, and added that the trip wasn't a trap because his purpose had been to meet with García so he could 'tell his wife and family he was OK'. 'That was my goal. And I achieved that goal,' he said. But he added that 'the Salvadorian authorities tried to deceive people. They tried to make it look like he was in paradise. They actually wanted to have the meeting by the hotel pool originally.' The senator also accused Tom Homan, Trump's 'border czar', of 'lying through his teeth' about Ábrego García, and strongly rejected comments by Gavin Newsom, the California governor seen as a potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, who said that it was politically dangerous for Democrats to defend the wrongly deported man. 'I think what Americans are tired of, is people who want to put their finger to the wind to see what's going on,' the senator said. 'I would say that anyone that's not prepared to defend the constitutional rights of one man, when they threaten the constitutional rights of all, doesn't deserve to lead.' After the meeting, President Nayib Bukele posted the image on X, writing that García 'miraculously risen from the 'death camps' & 'torture', now sipping margaritas with Senator Van Hollen in the tropical paradise of El Salvador!' Van Hollen said the venue for the meeting and the subsequent picture 'just goes to show the lengths that Bukele and Trump will go to try to deceive people about what this case is all about'. On Friday, the White House mocked Van Hollen by annotating a headline about his Thursday meeting with García. 'Fixed it for you, New York Times,' the White House X account shared. 'Oh, and by the way, Chris Van Hollen – he's NOT coming back.' The annotated headline changes 'Senator Meets With Wrongly Deported Maryland Man in El Salvador' included crossing out 'Wrongly' in red ink and replacing the words 'Maryland Man' with 'MS-13 Illegal Alien'. They also added 'Who's Never Coming Back.' Related: US supreme court orders temporary halt to deportations of Venezuelan men But Ábrego García's deportation was also facing opposition from Republicans. On Sunday, the Louisiana senator John Kennedy was asked on Meet The Press if Ábrego García should be returned to the US. Kennedy said that Van Hollen's trip to El Salvador and calls for Ábrego García to be returned to the US were 'utterly and gloriously wrong' and said that 'most of this gauzy rhetoric is just rage bait. Unless you're next-level obtuse, you know that Mr García is never coming back to the United States, ever.' But Kennedy conceded that Ábrego García's deportation 'was a screw-up', adding that 'the administration won't admit it, but this was a screw-up. Mr García was not supposed to be sent to El Salvador. He was sent to El Salvador.' But he said Democrats' response was typical. 'The Democrats say, 'Look, you know, we told you, Trump is a threat to democracy.' This is going to happen every other Thursday afternoon. I don't see any pattern here. I mean, you know, some day pigs may fly, but I doubt it,'' he added.
