BREAKING: Supreme Court says Trump admin does not have to comply with judge’s order to return Maryland MS-13 member from El Salvadoran prison

Chief Justice John Roberts paused the order from US District Judge Paula Xinis requiring that Kilmar Abrego Garcia be returned to the US. Xinis’ order came in response to a lawsuit filed by the man and his family.

"IT IS ORDERED that the April 4, 2025 order of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, case No. 8:25-cv-951, is hereby stayed pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court. It is further ordered that a response to the application be filed on or before Tuesday, April 8th, 2025, by 5 p.m. (EDT)," the order stated.

Xinis ordered that Abrego Garcia be returned to the US by 11:59 pm on Monday after he was deported on March 15 aboard deportation flights to El Salvador. In a filing to the Supreme Court, the DOJ said he was removed to El Salvador through "administrative error," though his removal from the US "was not an error," per Reuters.

Abrego Garcia had received a deportation protection order in 2019. The DOJ said that he was a member of the violent MS-13 gang and was no longer eligible for such protections. Abrego Garcia's lawyers have denied the allegation that he is a gang member.

Xinis found that the 2019 order was still in place, and wrote in her Sunday decision, "there were no legal grounds whatsoever for his arrest, detention or removal." She said the removal of Abrego Garcia was "wholly lawless."

In a filing to the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice said, "The United States cannot guarantee success in sensitive international negotiations in advance, least of all when a court imposes an absurdly compressed, mandatory deadline that vastly complicates the give-and-take of foreign-relations negotiations."

"The United States does not control the sovereign nation of El Salvador, nor can it compel El Salvador to follow a federal judge's bidding."