In what might be the rarest admission ever on CNN, the hate-Trump network’s top legal analyst agrees with the White House — notably, aide Stephen Miller — that the U.S. Supreme Court did not order the Trump administration to bring a deported illegal alien back to the United States.
Chief Legal Correspondent Paula Reid bluntly stated the upshot of the SCOTUS ruling in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal Salvadoran accused of membership in the feral MS-13 terror gang. “They did not,” she said of the ruling by the nine justices, “order the administration to return him to the United States.”
At the same time, more information surfaced on X yesterday about Garcia, including court documents that detail his wife’s accusation of domestic violence. Immigration court documents posted to X called Garcia a “verified” gang banger.
Tricia McLaughlin, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, also posted details about Garcia’s suspected gang membership.
SCOTUS Did Not Mandate Garcia’s Return
On March 15, Immigration and Customs Enforcement packed Garcia off to El Salvador, where he landed in the high-security terrorist confinement center known as CECOT.
Ever since, far-left judges and Democrats have been trying to return him to the United States. A U.S. District judge in Washington, D.C., ordered his return. The Trump administration appealed to SCOTUS. The high court ruled 9-0 that the administration should “facilitate” his return, and noted that federal courts have no authority over foreign policy.
On Fox News, Miller explained the ruling.
“This has been portrayed wrong for 72 hours in the media,” the White House aide said:
[The court] said the most a court could ever compel you to do would be to facilitate return, which would basically mean if El Salvador voluntarily sends him back we wouldn’t block him at the airport. We would put him back into ICE detention and then he would be deported either back to El Salvador or somewhere else.
At the meeting between President Donald Trump and El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, where Bukele said returning Garcia to the United States was “preposterous,” Miller elaborated.
Because Trump declared MS-13 a terrorist organization, Miller averred, “he was no longer eligible for any form of immigration relief.… We had a deportation order that was valid, which means under our law, he’s not even allowed to be present in the United States and had to be returned because of the foreign terrorist designation.”
Van Hollen
Despite that, far-left Democrat Senator Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador yesterday to get Garcia released, or at least to visit him in prison. The Bukele administration refused to accommodate Van Hollen, who voted against the Laken Riley Act. That law requires the arrest, detention, and deportation of illegal aliens. A Venezuelan illegal alien whom the Biden administration released at the southwest border murdered nursing student Riley last year.
While Van Hollen has repeatedly posted about Garcia on X, he said nothing about an illegal-alien’s rape and murder of Rachel Morin in Harford County, Maryland, in 2023, as the White House Rapid Response X feed noted.
Also pointing to Van Hollen’s indifference to Morin’s murder was her mother, Patty Morin. She leveled Van Hollen on Fox talker Sean Hannity’s program.
CNN: Miller Is Right
All that aside, legal correspondent Reid said that Miller is right. Supreme Court justices did not order the administration to return Garcia.
“They did not order the administration to return him to the United States,” she told the network’s Jake Tapper. “They said that they need to ‘facilitate’ his return. They could have said ‘we order him returned,’ but they didn’t do that.”
Noting that Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the administration, would, indeed, “facilitate” the return, Reid continued:
The Supreme Court appeared to defer to the executive branch given that this is an international matter, and you see, yes, it does look a little bit like a semantic game, but they are playing within the bounds of what the Supreme Court ruled.
So no, they are not defying this order.
Tapper then turned to video of Miller’s explanation to White House reporters what the SCOTUS ruling meant.
New Docs Posted
In a blow to Van Hollen, who claims that the U.S. government never charged Garcia with a crime, documents from an immigration hearing on Garcia’s bid to stay in the country appeared on X.
“Evidence shows that [Garcia] is a verified member of MS-13,” ruled the top immigration court in Baltimore, Maryland.
As well, the Department of Homeland Security posted court documents today about the domestic violence allegation from his wife, Jennifer Vasquez. The document alleges that Garcia “punched and scratched petitioner, ripped off shirt, grabbed and bruised petitioner.”
As for Garcia’s gang membership, McLaughlin offered details without documentation on X:
1. When Garcia was arrested he was found with rolls of cash and drugs.
2. He was arrested with two other members of MS-13.
3. Two judges found that he was a member of MS-13. That finding has not been disturbed.
4. When arrested he was wearing what is effectively MS-13’s uniform.
As The New American reported yesterday, in the photo of Garcia and his family featured on the GoFundMe website, he is wearing a Chicago Bulls ball cap. The NBA’s team clothing are signs of MS-13 membership.
At this writing, GoFundMe has raised almost $200,000 for the family.
