This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here.
Trump has two options after a wrongful deportation
Only one is lawful.
Patrick Reis was the senior politics and ideas editor at Vox. He previously worked at Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, Politico, National Journal, and Seattle’s Real Change News. As a reporter and editor, he has worked on coverage of campaign politics, economic policy, the federal death penalty, climate change, financial regulation, and homelessness.
Welcome to The Logoff: Today I’m focusing on the Trump administration’s escalating fight with the judicial branch over a wrongful deportation, after appellate judges — the last stop before the Supreme Court — issued a stark warning about the peril of defying court orders.
What’s the context? Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was sent to a Salvadorian prison last month despite a court order barring his deportation, a move the Trump administration concedes was an “administrative error.” The Supreme Court last week unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that the administration must “facilitate” his return to the US.
The administration has not complied, instead arguing that the courts can’t compel President Donald Trump to ask El Salvador to return Abrego Garcia. (El Salvador’s president said this week that he won’t send him back unsolicited.) But a lower court judge rejected that rationale and ordered officials to provide answers on what’s being done to comply with the court — an order the administration appealed.
What’s the latest? An appeals court on Thursday slapped down the administration’s attempt to get out of providing more information about its efforts to bring back Abrego Garcia. The administration’s claims in the case, the judges wrote, “should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”
What’s next? The administration could appeal the case again, this time to the Supreme Court, which could clarify what exactly the administration is compelled to do for Abrego Garcia.
What’s the big picture? The latest ruling makes clear that, absent the Supreme Court changing course, the administration has two choices: It can do more to bring Abrego Garcia back, or it can continue to defy court orders. It’s pretty clear where we’re headed: The White House posted on X today that Abrego Garcia is “never coming back.”
And with that, it’s time to log off…
Just a quick reminder that “logging off” doesn’t mean tuning out the world or giving up on it. It means being intentional about where you put your focus, time, and energy — and not surrendering all of those to an eye-glazing doomscroll. I’ve been doing too much of the latter lately, so here’s a short poem, “Hummingbirds,” that I hope can help us all make the best of our time. Thanks for reading. See you back here next week.
