We have major breaking news.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has resoundingly rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to block an order requiring it to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported and is now being held in El Salvador—without charges, without evidence, and without any semblance of due process.
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Let’s be clear: this ruling is not just a legal setback for the Trump administration—it’s a thunderous rebuke.
“We shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision,” wrote the panel of appellate judges.
And then came the gut punch:
“It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process.”
That sentence should chill every American to their core.
The Heart of the Case
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is not just a name on a court docket. He is a human being—a man the government admits was wrongly deported. He was taken from his home in Maryland and shipped off to a foreign prison, held incommunicado in a megaprison in El Salvador under President Bukele’s regime.
The Trump administration claims Abrego Garcia is a terrorist. That he’s MS-13.
Perhaps. But perhaps not.
And that’s the point. The government doesn’t get to imprison someone abroad and then claim it doesn’t have to prove a thing. In the words of the Court:
“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.”
Under federal regulation 8 C.F.R. § 208.24(f), the government must show—by a preponderance of the evidence—that an individual is no longer entitled to protection from removal. That process must happen here, under the law, not through backroom arrangements with foreign governments and hot mic conversations about building more prisons.
The Rule of Law Still Means Something
This ruling is a reminder that not even the most powerful office in the land can escape the Constitution. The government does not get to erase mistakes by doubling down on injustice. It has conceded that Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported.
So why won’t it make that wrong right?
The Fourth Circuit didn’t just uphold a ruling. It issued a warning:
“This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
The Trump administration’s insistence on circumventing due process and defying judicial orders has now triggered a full-blown constitutional crisis. But thanks to this ruling, there’s now a sliver of accountability.
Read the full order here.
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This story isn’t over. More rulings are expected, more revelations will emerge, and I’ll be here covering every word—because someone has to.
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