Last month, the U.S. government deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man living in Maryland with protected legal status. The Trump administration acknowledged in court that Abrego Garcia’s deportation was “an administrative error”; last week the Supreme Court unanimously ordered the executive branch to “facilitate” his return to the United States.
Since then, the Justice Department has dragged its feet. It has filed required reports to a district court judge late, and has refused to say what it’s doing to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States. But whether this was defiance or merely delay was unclear until today. In an Oval Office press conference this afternoon, the White House revealed that the answer is defiance—at least for now. Both the U.S. and El Salvador are pretending that they have no power to do anything about Abrego Garcia.