Trump asks Supreme Court to block return of alleged MS-13 member

(AFP) The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to cancel an order to repatriate from El Salvador a migrant deported by "error," hours before a deadline set by a judge expires.

Kilmar Ábrego García, 29, was sent along with more than 200 other people, mostly Venezuelans, to El Salvador's Center for Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) as part of Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration and criminality.

US District Judge Paula Xinis ordered on Friday that he be repatriated to the United States by 23H59 Monday, after Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers acknowledged an "administrative error" in the removal.

A federal appeals court upheld the decision. Judge Harvie Wilkinson wrote: "There is no doubt that the government made a mistake."

On Monday, the Trump administration took the case to the conservative-majority Supreme Court, calling the repatriation order "unprecedented and indefensible."

In the appeal he sharply criticizes the ruling. It mentions that it requires allowing "entry into the United States" of "a member of a foreign terrorist organization."

The White House accuses Abrego Garcia of being a member of the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang. "Somebody said he's a member of MS-13 and not the Tren de Aragua [gang]," President Trump told reporters Sunday night.

Judge Xinis ordered the government to repatriate Abrego Garcia because he is entitled to "due process under the Constitution and governing immigration statutes" in the United States.

He was detained "without legal basis" on March 12 and deported three days later without "legal justification," the judge said.

The Salvadoran was living in the United States under protected legal status. In 2019, during Trump's first term, he was charged with being a gang member, but he was not convicted of any crime and a judge barred his deportation because he is at risk in his home country.