4th Circuit Court of Appeals sides with SCOTUS and lower District Court.
In the case of Secretary of Homeland Security et al v Mr. Abrego Garcia
Hey, we will get back to regularly scheduled posts soon enough but in the mean time follow my TikTok to stay up to date on all the news you need to know about!
The Supreme Court of the United States had ruled yesterday against President Trump’s Administration in their bid to keep Mr. Abrego Garcia in El Salvador arguing that he’s outside of US jurisdiction and there is nothing that can be done. The Supreme Court ordered that the Administration ‘facilitate’ Mr. Abrego Garcia’s return from El Salvador.
The Trump Administration then disagreed with the lower district court’s ruling that the Trump Administration must do more than just remove domestic barriers to allow Mr. Abrego Garcia to return if El Salvador wishes to release him and appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
In the appeal the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the lower court’s orders on what ‘facilitate’ means is correct and the Trump Administration is incorrect in their definition. It is likely this issue will be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. However, the Supreme Court does not need to take up this or any case. Only if 4 of the 9 Justices agree to hear the case will it be heard. That is why people say there is a conservative super majority because the conservative Justices could hold up any case from making it to the Supreme Court’s docket. Below I have parts of the ruling from the Fourth Circuit I wish to point out. I have bolded the extra important pieces.
The relief the government is requesting is both extraordinary and premature. While we fully respect the Executive’s robust assertion of its Article II powers, we shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision.
It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done.
The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process. If the government is confident of its position, it should be assured that position will prevail in proceedings to terminate the withholding of removal order… Moreover, the government has conceded that Abrego Garcia was wrongly or “mistakenly” deported. Why then should it not make what was wrong, right?
The Supreme Court’s decision remains, as always, our guidepost. That decision rightly requires the lower federal courts to give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”… That would allow sensitive diplomatic negotiations to be removed from public view. It would recognize as well that the “facilitation” of Abrego Garcia’s return leaves the Executive Branch with options in the execution to which the courts in accordance with the Supreme Court’s decision should extend a genuine deference.
The Supreme Court’s decision does not, however, allow the government to do essentially nothing. It requires the government “to ‘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.”… “Facilitate” is an active verb. It requires that steps be taken as the Supreme Court has made perfectly clear… The plain and active meaning of the word cannot be diluted by its constriction, as the government would have it, to a narrow term of art. We are not bound in this context by a definition crafted by an administrative agency and contained in a mere policy directive.
“Facilitation” does not permit the admittedly erroneous deportation of an individual to the one country’s prisons that the withholding order forbids and, further, to do so in disregard of a court order that the government not so subtly spurns. “Facilitation” does not sanction the abrogation of habeas corpus through the transfer of custody to foreign detention centers in the manner attempted here. Allowing all this would “facilitate” foreign detention more than it would domestic return. It would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood.
The Executive possesses enormous powers to prosecute and to deport, but with powers come restraints. If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” would lose its meaning.
It is in this atmosphere that we are reminded of President Eisenhower’s sage example. Putting his “personal opinions” aside, President Eisenhower honored his “inescapable” duty to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education II to desegregate schools “with all deliberate speed.” Address by the President of the United States, Delivered from his Office at the White House This great man expressed his unflagging belief that “[t]he very basis of our individual rights and freedoms is the certainty that the President and the Executive Branch of Government will support and [e]nsure the carrying out of the decisions of the Federal Courts.” Id. at 3. Indeed, in our late Executive’s own words, “[u]nless the President did so, anarchy would result.”
In sum, and for the reasons foregoing, we deny the motion for the stay pending appeal and the writ of mandamus in this case. It is so ordered.