Main: President Donald Trump, left, waves as he greets El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele as Bukele arrives at the White House, Monday, April 14, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta). Inset: Kilmar Abrego Garcia in an undated photo (CASA).
The U.S. Court of Appeals on Thursday said it was both “extraordinary and premature” for the Trump administration to think it could get the 4th Circuit to “micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge” after filing a request on Wednesday night to block an order demanding the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a protected Maryland resident who was mistakenly shipped to a prison in El Salvador.
In a unanimous ruling, the three-judge panel from Virginia called on the Justice Department to prove its allegations that Abrego Garcia was an alleged criminal and member of the notorious MS-13 gang in a court of law, rather than spouting them to the press and in filings without evidence.
“It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter,” wrote Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a Ronald Reagan appointee, in the 4th Circuit’s order.
“But in this case, it is not hard at all,” Wilkinson said. “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. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
Attorneys for Abrego Garcia, who is suing the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Kristi Noem, have accused the DOJ of flouting orders from the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland, instructing the government to return him to the United States as soon as possible. A three-page filing Tuesday alleged that Trump administration officials have been intentionally misconstruing court orders since Abrego Garcia, whose wife and child are both U.S. citizens, was deported in “error” in March under President Donald Trump’s unprecedented use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (AEA), a wartime authority previously invoked only three times, the last of which was during World War II.
On April 10, the high court upheld Xinis’ prior order requiring the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from the Salvadoran work prison. Xinis then ordered the DOJ to inform her of Abrego Garcia’s current status and the steps the DOJ has taken and plans to take to “facilitate” his return to the U.S.
The Trump administration has been outwardly defiant, though, by repeatedly stonewalling the court with daily updates that provide Xinis with little to none of the information requested, to the point where criminal contempt charges have now been brought forth.
Fed up with the “gamesmanship” and “grandstanding” over the deportation case, Xinis tore into the Jutice Department at a hearing Tuesday following yet another nose-thumbing in court filings, with DOJ lawyers and administration officials being blasted for not providing proper updates and blatantly ignoring judicial orders related to Abrego Garcia’s situation.
The DOJ filed its emergency motion to stay Xinis’ order with the 4th Circuit on Wednesday night, along with court documents saying it would be appealing a recent order from U.S. District Judge James Boasberg that said there was probable cause to bring forward criminal contempt charges for the government’s alleged refusal to follow his order to return Venezuelan immigrants who were deported with Abrego Garcia on March 15.
The Trump administration claimed in its plea to the appeals court that Xinis had “crossed” a constitutional line and created a “fishing expedition” with her judicial demands.
“The federal courts do not have the authority to press-gang the President or his agents into taking any particular act of diplomacy,” the Justice Department said Wednesday night in an emergency motion to stay the Abrego Garcia order from Xinis, which called on the government to “facilitate and effectuate” the return of the 29-year-old dad to the United States as soon as possible.
Wilkinson and the 4th Circuit said while they “fully respect the Executive’s robust assertion of its Article II powers,” it would be wrong to overstep Xinis and stay her order.
“We shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision,” Wilkinson said. “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.”
The 4th Circuit called on Trump’s DOJ to prove its claims in court if it wants to keep Abrego Garcia out.
“The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not,” Wilkinson said. “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.”
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