Last week, the Supreme Court issued an unsigned opinion requiring the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Maryland man whom immigration officials deported to a Salvadoran megaprison 32 days ago. But the justices pointedly stopped short of requiring the administration to “effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return, in light of the “deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.” They did so despite the fact that lawyers for the government have conceded that it had no legal basis to deport Abrego Garcia; in court, they have characterized his disappearance as an “administrative error,” as if shipping a man who has not been accused of a crime to an overseas gulag is the equivalent of neglecting to attach an itemized receipt to an expense report.
It wouldn’t have changed their actions, but it would have rid them of any plausible deniability that they had committed contempt of the Supreme Court in doing so. It would have made the constitutional crisis that we ARE in undeniable, and even the idiots at Fox News couldn’t pretend that the administration followed the order by “allowing” his return if El Salvador just so happened to send him back. As it is now, you will have many MAGA believing that the administration is in compliance with the court’s orders and did nothing wrong. They would have at least had to face the truth if there was no wiggle room, and maybe some would actually acknowledge that the administration is in the wrong about this one thing at least.