cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/25857740
This is INSANE! Trump is asking the Supreme Court to bless his administration screwing up TO THE POINT THEY CEEDED CUSTODY OF A PERSON THEY DIDN’T HAVE LEGAL CUSTODY OVER and not require them to fix it?
If SCOTUS backs Trump here, literally all is lost. Due process will have NO MEANING if this isn’t fixed ASAP.
Remember, if they did it to this guy the only thing stopping them from doing it to you or me is dumb luck.
Anyone who’s watched Trump for any length of time shouldn’t be at all surprised by this. Just ask the five Black men who wrongfully spent years in jail for the 1989 assault of a jogger in Central Park, before being exonerated in 2002 due to DNA evidence and a confession by the man who actually did it; because a full fourteen years after their release from prison, Trump maintained that they were guilty (and probably still does).
The man is biologically incapable of apologizing or taking responsibility for his actions.
This shit is going down today. There are three possibilities:
- Supreme Court grants a stay, ignoring the rule of law, and hastening the slide to authoritarianism.
- No stay, and the government hustles to get this man back to the US by midnight tonight. I’d guess it’s like 6-8 hours of flying just to get to El Salvador and back, so the clock is really ticking on this option.
- No stay, and the deadline expires. The government will clearly be in continuous and ongoing contempt of court.
If they don’t get a stay and they make some kind of half hearted “bad man Bukele won’t cooperate” argument, I don’t think Xinis will buy that, and they’ll be back to #3.
Psst. Justice Roberts granted the stay.
Americans and America are fucked that much more.
Yeah. All by himself too; did not refer to the rest of the court. And his order appeared after the plaintiff filed the response that was requested.
they make some kind of half hearted “bad man Bukele won’t cooperate” argument
That’s not half-hearted. It’s a very, very real possibility especially if Bukele wants to cozy up to Trump and give him an out.
“Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador and is currently in our custody awaiting trial on criminal charges for crimes he committed before he fled the country to escape justice. He will remain in the custody of El Salvador until he is tried for those charges and any sentence imposed on him has been completed. He will not be sent back to the United States.”
From there, Trump can easily make a “good faith” argument that he tried to have the citizen returned but was unable to secure his release. His MAGA base will eat it up, and it’s very likely that the Supreme Court would dismiss the case based on lack of jurisdiction and lack of enforcement mechanism. Even if they don’t, any ruling would be a symbolic gesture at best and carry as much practical weight as me making the same demands from my front porch.
Remember, El Salvador has absolutely no reason to send this guy back. Bukele is under no circumstances going to defy Trump’s wishes when he’s actively trying to cozy up to Trump. If anything, he’s only going to run cover for Trump.
We don’t have to like it, but that’s the reality of the situation. There is no method of enforcement. If El Salvador is unwilling to send him back, he’s staying there. And the Supreme Court could very well recognize that reality. They could easily vote 9-0 that Trump was in the wrong but dismiss Xinis’ order anyway due to it being unenforceable.
Has Bukele said this? Has the administration made any attempt to return him?
It is possible that they will stonewall, but it is important to force them to do so rather than obeying in advance.
No, he has not said that, and I agree that it’s important to get it on the record for a variety of reasons.
I’m just saying that there is a very likely possibility of this being the end result, even if only so Bukele can cozy up to Trump, and that if he does say this, the geopolitical reality of the situation is that it would essentially be the end of the case.
If they managed to get Bukele to make such a statement, and they got it into the district court record, I would guess that Xinis would back off and not press contempt.
If I had to predict the supreme court on this pending appeal, I’m going with 7-2 to deny the stay, with Thomas and Alito dissenting.
This case is moving so fast because the DOJ career lawyer basically conceded the government’s entire case at the hearing last week. The normal rule is that you can’t introduce evidence and arguments on appeal if you didn’t raise them at the district court. The government is now furiously trying to bypass that in these appeals.
So I think some of the conservative justices will be upset with that, and they will also not want to concede power from the courts to the executive branch. They want that power for themselves.
The US is paying them to house those prisoners though, which makes it harder to pass the buck onto Bukele. Not to say they won’t try that argument, but this isn’t just a situation of us dropping him off and saying bye.
They’re paying $6 million. At a geopolitical level, that would barely qualify as a rounding error on one of their budgets.
That, and we don’t know the details of the agreement that Trump made with El Salvador. This is Trump we are talking about. He very well could have made a deal to give Bukele $6 million and dump a bunch of random gang members to rot away in CECOT while getting nothing in return and having no recourse if mistakes are made. This is a Trump deal we’re talking about after all.
Assuming Trump even wanted to cooperate (spoiler alert: He doesn’t), the only leverage is that $6 million payment. And that’s assuming that the payment hasn’t already been made. If Trump handed over a plane full of random people and a $6 million check, it very well could be a case of Trump dropping them off and saying bye.
Agree with what you say, was just pointing out that the 6 million payment gives US courts a little more leverage over holding Trump to bring them back. Assuming the SC doesn’t just punt it anyways.
100% agree that really the supreme Court’s decision here is likely to determine how much longer the horrors last.
If things go well, this won’t last more than 4 years.
If things go poorly this could be the end of the free world as we know it.
Thankfully, there are two other options in this game theory square that both offer a glimmer of hope even if they suggest a period of darkness.
Edit: the supreme court paused the decision. This represents one of the “other two options” in this game theory square. It’s not ideal, but there’s still a path forward.
Hastening the slide? We’re already there. Everything now is just damage control.
I am putting all of my money into saying that the Supreme Court will rule in Trump’s favor on this case and claim that the US has no authority to ask El Salvador to send one of its own citizens back to the US, or method of enforcement.
Just for clarity, he’s not a citizen. He did have a legal protected status which was supposed to allow him to remain here or at the very least not be deported to specifically El Salvador. Still fucked, but just want to get the facts straight.
EDIT I misunderstood, he is a citizen of El Salvador, but not the US. I’d seen people claiming he was a US citizen and wanted to correct that.
He is a citizen of El Salvador. It even states as much in the first line of the article. He fled the country to escape the political violence and gang warfare. Any charges he’s facing are likely made-up and he shouldn’t have been sent back there in the first place, but he is a citizen of El Salvador.
That in itself complicates matters tremendously.
Ah, my bad, I misread, I thought they said he was a US citizen. I’ve seen people making that claim and wanted to correct it
Right. Of course, the obvious question is what would happen if one of the people sent there is a US citizen that got sent there through a similar “error”.
Doesn’t matter if he was a citizen or not. First, all people within the US are under the umbrella of the constitution and, thus, have rights within our borders. One of those rights is the right to due process. He did not receive any due process, nor did any of those sent to El Salvador. There is nothing then that will catch mistakes like this.
Maybe you or someone thinks that is fine, that non-citizens shouldn’t have constitutional rights like the right to due process. Ok, well then guess what happens when a citizen is “mistakenly” picked up by ICE, thinking they are a non-citizen and receives no due process? The exact same thing that happened to him. If we dont even take enough time to verify one’s identity, then anyone could be treated as a non-citizen and have no legal recourse at all, including a full US citizen. Due process for everyone is the only way to assure that all citizens receive due process as well.
Oh, believe me, I am in full agreement. This never should have happened, for many, many reasons. I was just attempting to correct what I thought was a factual inaccuracy that does have a material impact on the case.
Doesn’t matter if he was a citizen or not.
You are right that it doesn’t matter in terms of constitutional protections, but it does matter in terms of how this case plays out.
It’s one thing to ask a foreign country to send a US citizen back to the US. It’s a completely different thing to ask a country to send back one of their own citizens.
Regardless of what you think of the charges that Garcia is being held on (and I fully agree that they’re completely bogus), the US is essentially asking that a foreign country send one of their own citizens back to the US so they can escape the foreign country’s own judicial system. That is just never, ever, ever going to happen. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. I’m just saying no country is ever going to agree to it.
So, they’re asking the Supreme Court to suspend this man’s Constitutional rights and undermine the entire basis for judicial law in the US, by knowingly punishing a man who didn’t commit the crime he’s been accused of?
Not only did he not receive due process under the law…they know for a fact he was sent there by mistake. If they uphold this, then Constitutional law is dead. We’re living in a country where justice is decided by a moron.
This. This case is a hard red line for the constitution.
This is a far cry from the U.S. relations going into the toilet for crap like this in the past. Oh how far we’ve fallen.
Never admit you’re wrong, that’s the first rule of being fascist.
