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The government said Judge Paula Xinis, who ordered that the administration return the migrant, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, by Monday, had engaged in “district-court diplomacy.”
- April 7, 2025Updated 4:01 p.m. ET
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Monday temporarily blocked a trial judge’s order directing the United States to return a Salvadoran migrant it had inadvertently deported.
The chief justice, acting on his own, issued an “administrative stay,” an interim measure meant to give the justices some breathing room while the full court considers the matter. He ordered the migrant’s lawyers to file their brief on Tuesday.
The order came just hours after the administration asked the court to block the trial judge’s order directing the United States to return the migrant by 11:59 p.m. on Monday.
Judge Paula Xinis of the Federal District Court in Maryland had said the administration committed a “grievous error” that “shocks the conscience” by sending the migrant, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to a notorious prison last month.
In the administration’s emergency application, D. John Sauer, the U.S. solicitor general, said Judge Xinis had exceeded her authority by engaging in “district-court diplomacy,” because it would require working with the government of El Salvador to secure his release.
“If this precedent stands,” he wrote, “other district courts could order the United States to successfully negotiate the return of other removed aliens anywhere in the world by close of business,” he wrote. “Under that logic, district courts would effectively have extraterritorial jurisdiction over the United States’ diplomatic relations with the whole world.”
