Appeals court backs judge in Abrego Garcia case, saying Trump DOJ ‘would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness’
This still from a video from July 22
By Tierney Sneed and Devan Cole, CNN
(CNN) — A federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s request that it halt the next steps Judge Paula Xinis is seeking to take in the case concerning a migrant who was wrongly deported to El Salvador, with a strident warning about the rule of law and the possibility the dispute presented an “incipient crisis.”
The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals said in its seven-page ruling Thursday that the Trump administration’s assertions in the case “should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
The unanimous ruling was written by Judge Harvie Wilkinson, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan. In it, he was extremely critical of the administration’s effort to undo some of Xinis’ recent orders in the case, sounding alarm bells about how its maneuverings in the matter have resulted in the two branches “grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both.”
“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,” Wilkinson wrote. “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.”
The appeals court used the order to weigh in on the broader atmosphere around President Donald Trump’s conflict with the judiciary.
“The basic differences between the branches mandate a serious effort at mutual respect. The respect that courts must accord the Executive must be reciprocated by the Executive’s respect for the courts,” the 4th Circuit said. “Too often today this has not been the case, as calls for impeachment of judges for decisions the Executive disfavors and exhortations to disregard court orders sadly illustrate.”
The court’s rejection of the Justice Department’s bid for emergency intervention sets the stage for the dispute to return to the Supreme Court, one week after the justices left most of the Xinis’ order that the government facilitate the migrants return.
The order, nonetheless, ended with a note of optimism.
“It is, as we have noted, all too possible to see in this case an incipient crisis, but it may present an opportunity as well,” the 4th Circuit said. “We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos.”
Backing a judge under fire
Sprinkled through the ruling was support from the circuit court of how Xinis was handling the lawsuit. The migrant, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, sued over his removal to El Salvador despite an order from an immigration judge that he not be deported to that specific country – an error the administration has conceded.
Trump officials, however, have resisted all steps ordered by the judge to return Abrego Garcia to the United States – or even inform her of any actions taken by officials to follow her orders – so that his due process rights could be honored in any future removal process.
The 4th Circuit on Thursday acknowledged its full respect of “the Executive’s robust assertion of its Article II powers,” but said it would “not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision.”
The ruling, coming just hours after the administration pressed for its intervention in the matter, rejected all of the arguments Justice Department attorneys have been pushing in recent days, including that Xinis had improperly clarified her order – as the Supreme Court instructed her to do – that officials work to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia from one of El Salvador’s notorious mega-prisons.
Referencing Trump’s own comments suggesting as such, the 4th Circuit noted that the administration’s arguments in this case, taken to their ends, could lead to the deportation of citizens without any option for remedy.
“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?”
Critically, the panel shot down the department’s argument that “facilitate” simply means “removing domestic obstacles” that would impede his ability to return to the US.
“The government’s argument that all it must do is ‘remove any domestic barriers to [Abrego Garcia’s] return’ is not well taken in light of the Supreme Court’s command that the government facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador,” the court said.
The government’s argument, the court said, “would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
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