Conservative Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson Condemns Trump Administration Actions

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) posted a picture of himself with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man whom the Trump administration says it sent to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador through “administrative error” but can’t get back, and wrote: “I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return.”

While the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, apparently tried to stage a photo that would make it look as if the two men were enjoying a cocktail together, it seems clear that backing down and giving Senator Van Hollen access to Abrego Garcia is a significant shift from Bukele’s previous scorn for those trying to address the crisis of a man legally in the U.S. having been sent to prison in El Salvador without due process.

Bukele might be reassessing the distribution of power in the U.S.

According to Robert Jimison of the New York Times, who traveled to El Salvador with Senator Van Hollen, when a reporter asked President Donald Trump if he would move to return Abrego Garcia to the United States, Trump answered: “Well, I’m not involved. You’ll have to speak to the lawyers, the [Department of Justice].”

The end if this week a federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to stop Judge Paula Xinis’s order that it “take all available steps” to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. “as soon as possible.” Conservative Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, wrote the order. Notably, it began with a compliment to Judge Xinis. “[W]e shall not micromanage the efforts of a fine district judge attempting to implement the Supreme Court’s recent decision,” he wrote.

Then Wilkinson turned his focus on the Trump administration. “It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter,” he wrote. “But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

“The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not. Regardless, he is still entitled to due process.” The court noted that if the government is so sure of its position, then it should be confident in presenting its facts to a court of law.

Echoing the liberal justices on the Supreme Court, Wilkinson wrote: “If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?” He noted the reports that the administration is talking about doing just that.

“And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present,” he wrote, “and the Executive’s obligation to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ would lose its meaning.”