What's at stake in Kilmar Ábrego García's Supreme Court case?

Kilmar Ábrego García was seemingly safe in America. A 2019 court order blocked the 29-year-old migrant's deportation to his native El Salvador, where he feared gang violence. But the Trump administration deported him anyway, and now the Supreme Court is taking on the case in a major test of the president's anti-immigration agenda.

The government has conceded that Ábrego García's deportation was an "administrative error," said BBC News. (The Trump administration then suspended the Justice Department attorney who made that admission.) Officials say they "cannot compel El Salvador to return" him despite a federal judge's order to do so. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts stayed that order while the Supreme Court decides the case. The big issue in the case involves due process: Ábrego García was deported "without any notice, legal process, or hearing," said U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis. If that action stands, the government would be empowered to "pick up anybody, at any time, and send them anywhere with no repercussions whatsoever," said Maureen Sweeney, director of the University of Maryland's Chacón Center for Immigrant Justice.

'Morally intolerable'

Trump administration attorneys say Ábrego García belongs to the MS-13 gang, a recently designated terrorist organization. His lawyers deny the allegation, and he has no documented criminal record. The government says the case is now about its "right to deport undocumented immigrants, or gang members, or terrorists," said Adam Serwer at The Atlantic. But it is really about whether the government "can kidnap someone off the street and then maroon them" overseas. Deportation without due process may be constitutionally suspect, but it should also be "morally intolerable to any decent human being."

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White House officials say the matter is out of their hands. Ábrego García is a "native and citizen of El Salvador being detained in El Salvador by the Government of El Salvador," Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the Trump administration's point man on the case, said in a filing to the Supreme Court. Judges cannot require the president to negotiate Ábrego García's return. There may have been an "administrative error" in Ábrego García's case, but federal courts do not have the authority to "seize control over foreign relations, treat the Executive Branch as a subordinate diplomat, and demand that the United States let a member of a foreign terrorist organization into America."

'Accurately, fairly and lawfully'

"Where does Kilmar Ábrego García get his due process?" asked Linda Chavez at The Bulwark. Ábrego García entered the country illegally, but he has led a "typical immigrant life" by getting married, having a child, holding down a construction job and joining a union apprenticeship program. This is not just about him, though. The case highlights the "bedrock principle of the right to due process," which "doesn't exist to protect criminals." Instead, it ensures the government acts "accurately, fairly and lawfully" in its dealings with noncitizens and citizens alike.

Ábrego García remains in limbo until all this is decided. The White House has a "governance problem with overtones of cruelty," The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. President Donald Trump "hates to admit an error," but "mistakes happen." The government should simply "ask the Salvadoran government to send Mr. Ábrego García back to unite with his family."