The White House on Friday responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador, rather than “effectuate” the return.
“The Supreme Court made their ruling last night very clear that it’s the administration’s responsibility to facilitate the return, not to effectuate the return,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
Leavitt had been asked whether President Trump wants the leader of El Salvador to bring Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was deported from the U.S. to a prison in his home country, with him when he visits the White House next week.
“I believe the Department of Justice just filed another brief in the lower board. I would defer you to that for any updates,” Leavitt said.
As Leavitt was briefing reporters, the federal judge overseeing the case in lower court tore into the Justice Department at a hearing for refusing to comply with her order for more information about the man mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign repeatedly indicated he had no update as to the status of Abrego Garcia or any efforts to return him, saying the administration was still assessing the Supreme Court’s Thursday evening ruling in his case.
In a post on social platform X sharing a clip of Leavitt’s response, the Trump White House Rapid Response page referred to Abrego Garcia as a “deported MS-13 gang member and human trafficker.”
But the White House has yet to offer any evidence he has links to the gang or that he has a criminal record, which is typically public information.
The Supreme Court refused to lift a federal judge’s earlier order requiring the administration to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, who lives in Maryland and was protected by an immigration judge’s 2019 order preventing his deportation over concerns he would face violence in El Salvador.
The administration has acknowledged that Abrego Garcia was wrongly removed from the U.S. but pointed to an “administrative error” and argued that the courts could not mandate his return once he was in the hands of Salvadoran authorities.
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele is set to visit the White House on Monday “to talk about the cooperation that is at an all time high” between the two countries, Leavitt said Friday, as they work together on “the repatriation of El Salvadoran gang members who the previous administration allowed to infiltrate our country.”
Leavitt has previously said the two leaders will talk about the use of a supermax prison for deported migrants as Trump cracks down on immigration, though the facility has been hit with allegations of human rights violations.
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