A U.S. appeals court urged the Trump administration on Thursday to back off from its escalating confrontation with the judiciary, warning that both the executive and judicial branches risk losing public confidence.
In a strongly worded unanimous opinion, a three-judge panel rejected President Donald Trump’s administration’s request to stop a judge from probing what the government had done to secure the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a migrant it acknowledged having wrongly deported to El Salvador.
The judges, part of the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said the executive branch represented by the administration and the courts were “grinding irrevocably against one another in a conflict that promises to diminish both.”
“We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson.
Wilkinson is an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, a Republican like Trump.
Asked to comment on the appeals court decision, a Justice Department spokesperson referred to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s posts on X on Monday and on Wednesday asserting that Abrego Garcia belonged to the MS-13 street gang.
An immigration judge in 2019 granted Abrego Garcia protection from deportation to El Salvador after finding he was likely to be persecuted by gangs if returned there, court records show.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers and family members deny he was part of MS-13.
“I was elected to get rid of those criminals, to get them out of our country,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Thursday when asked about Abrego Garcia. “I don’t see how judges can take that authority away from a president.”
The panel of judges said Trump’s claim to have the right to deport people “without due process and in disregard of court orders” would have implications beyond Abrego Garcia’s case.
“What assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?” Wilkinson wrote, citing news reports from earlier this week on Trump’s suggestion that U.S.-born criminals could also be sent to prisons in El Salvador, which experts say would violate U.S. law.
“And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies?” the judge wrote.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt, Maryland, this week ordered U.S. officials to provide documents and answer questions under oath about what they had done to secure the return of Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly sent to El Salvador on March 15.
Justice Department lawyers had asked the Fourth Circuit to pause Xinis’ probe and her order that the government facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who had been living in Maryland. The government has said it was powerless to get him back.
The appeals court disputed that assertion.
“It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter,” Wilkinson 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.”
The Trump administration faces more than 200 legal challenges to its policies. Democrats and some legal analysts say officials in some cases are dragging their feet in complying with unfavorable court orders, signaling a potential willingness to disobey an independent, coequal branch of government.
The judiciary is not the only U.S. institution to come under pressure. The Trump administration has targeted others that have long cherished their independence from partisan politics, such as universities and law firms.
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