The Supreme Court paused a judge's order commanding the Trump administration to bring an alleged MS-13 gang member back to the United States.
Chief Justice John Roberts lifted the midnight deadline from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, an Obama appointee, hours after the Justice Department filed an emergency appeal.
The Trump administration has conceded that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who entered the U.S. illegally, was deported to his native El Salvador in error.
But officials maintain that he is an MS-13 gang member, and they say Judge Xinis has no authority to compel his return.
Abrego Garcia has widely been depicted in the media as an innocent father victimized by an arbitrary deportation. In 2019, an immigration judge blocked Abrego Garcia's deportation to El Salvador over his fear of persecution by the 18th Street gang, which is the rival of MS-13.
He is being held in El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center, a famous prison built by the country's government in its crackdown on gangs like MS-13.
The Trump administration has said that it is impossible to effectuate his return now that he is being held in a foreign country, and they have blasted Xinis' edict as an unconstitutional attempt by the judiciary to interfere with foreign affairs.
"The district court’s injunction—which requires Abrego Garcia’s release from the custody of a foreign sovereign and return to the United States by midnight on Monday—is patently unlawful,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote.
The Supreme Court's intervention came just hours before the midnight deadline, on the same day that an appeals court upheld Xinis' order.
The administration has been locked in a multi-front legal battle against judges who, Trump says, are improperly stepping on the powers of the presidency.
Xinis' order is similar to the infamous ruling from a different Obama appointee, James Boasberg, ordering Trump to turn back deportation flights carrying alleged Venezuelan gang members.
The Supreme Court chastened Boasberg on Monday by upholding Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law, to facilitate rapid deportations.
The liberal justices, joined by conservative Amy Coney Barrett, dissented.
"The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
