An 'intuitive sense of liberty'

Senior appellate judge pushes back against U.S. officials on Abrego Garcia case

A senior U.S. appellate court judge issued a scathing decision yesterday in the latest chapter of a brewing legal crisis over the Trump administration’s deportation of 29-year-old Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego Garcia, currently held in an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration has deported about 300 migrants, mostly Venezuelans.

Getting to the heart of the matter in a convoluted immigration case that’s been headline news for a week-plus, said J. Harvie Wilkinson III, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, “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 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.

Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III

The decision came as the three-judge panel from the 4th Circuit unanimously denied the Trump administration’s request to suspend a district court judge’s call for further evidence surrounding Abrego Garcia’s removal after the Trump administration this week said it could not comply with the judge’s order, affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, to facilitate his return.

Trump lawyers initially told the courts that Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March as a result of an “administrative error.” The Salvadoran has never been charged with a crime in the United States and a court-issued withholding order forbid his removal to El Salvador.

But this week the president himself, members of the cabinet, and senior White House officials doubled down on allegations that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13 and a criminal deserving deportation. At an Oval Office meeting on Monday, Trump smiled and nodded as El Salvador President Nayib Bukele told reporters he would not return Abrego Garcia to the United States, saying, “I hope you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States.”

Judge Wilkinson in today’s decision said the Trump administration is not allowed “to do essentially nothing” and must comply with the judiciary on immigration cases.

The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. 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.

Wilkinson’s ruling makes clear the federal judiciary is not backing away from its role in the case, or others that involve forced removals without due process, or disregard for court rulings. It comes along with growing questions about others deported without due process to El Salvador’s mega prison and other facilities, and growing concerns of a constitutional crisis over Trump officials’ steamrolling court verdicts.

It will be hard to ignore as the 80-year-old jurist is a conservative nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 and once on a shortlist for Supreme Court nominees. He spent several paragraphs laying out separation of powers between branches of government as well:

The Executive possesses enormous powers to prosecute and to deport, but with powers come restraints. If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?

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Other news—

Some Afghans who sought refuge in the United States after the 2021 U.S. withdrawal received notices saying they had 7 days, until today, to depart the United States. That could mean 9,000 people facing deportation, I’m told, as former military personnel and others who assisted in their evacuation are pressing White House and DHS officials to roll back the order.

Between August 2021 and August 2024, nearly 150,000 Afghans resettled in the United States. Some received temporary protective status by the Biden administration, meaning they are legally residing in the United States, and many of those have applied for permanent residency. “If we go back to Afghanistan, we are not safe,” one Afghan man who received a notice told WRAL News in Raleigh, N.C.

Britain’s highest civil court ruled unanimously this week that the definition of “woman” under the country’s gender equality law is based on a person’s sex at birth. Transgender people continue to be protected from discrimination in other ways under the UK’s 2010 Equality Act, the court said.

The Israeli airstrike in Gaza that struck Al-Ahli Hospital on Palm Sunday severely damaged key infrastructure, including a chapel, and has forced the facility’s closure. The hospital, operating since 1882 as a medical mission of first Southern Baptists before takeover by the Anglican Church, was the last fully functional hospital in Gaza City. Church leaders worldwide condemned the attack.

• Officials said they received a report of the impending strike and had 20 minutes to evacuate patients and staff, but one child being treated for head injuries died as a result of disruption of care. Israeli Defense Forces said they targeted the hospital because they believed it “was used by Hamas terrorists to plan and execute terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops.”

• I visited Al-Ahli in 2010, and dedicated staff (who have remained there) faced life-threatening decisions every day even then.

Sudanese paramilitaries fighting the government killed the entire staff of the last medical clinic in a famine-stricken camp in the western region of Darfur. The attack came at the start of a ground offensive by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) once controlled by the government that has largely destroyed the Zamzam camp, Sudan’s largest with about 500,000 displaced people.

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Where words fail to express the depths of Christ’s sacrifice, there’s music. Concert pianist Mia Chung and maestro Richard Westerfield gave a wonderful talk today on Bach’s St. Matthew Passion that’s worth an Easter weekend listen.

In France at Taizé Community, and around the world, they light the Paschal fire early on Easter morning and read scripture before the women from the village carry the fire’s light through the dark to the church. The procession knocks three times on the door of the church and enters to the song of “Mshiha qam” (in Aramaic, “the Messiah is risen”). In whispers they announce, “He is alive.” And indeed He is.