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US edges closer to constitutional crisis over wrongly deported man

Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia.Credit: AP

Trump suggested the mainstream media was lobbying for Garcia to be returned. “They’d love to have a criminal released into our country … these are sick people,” he said, gesturing to reporters.

Casting the dispute as one of foreign policy, not domestic law, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Garcia was illegally present in the US, and the court could compel his return.

“No court in the United States has the right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States,” he said. “It’s that simple, end of story.”

Legal scholars and political opponents are now debating whether the US is at the start or on the edge of a constitutional crisis for which there would be little precedent.

Jean Reisz, an associate professor of law at the University of Southern California, said the country was “in uncharted waters”. Other than impeachment by Congress, there was no mechanism by which a court could compel the president to act.

“The court can determine whether the president’s actions are lawful or violate the Constitution or any other American law,” she said. “But there’s really no one to enforce the president. A judge can say the president is wrong and needs to do something to correct the situation, but there’s really no mechanism for the court to enforce that against the president.”

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said it was preposterous to suggest he could return the man to the United States.

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said it was preposterous to suggest he could return the man to the United States.Credit: AP

Reisz said this may be why the Supreme Court made the “soft ask” that the administration facilitate Garcia’s return, and handed the matter back to a lower court. “[They] didn’t go as far as saying they’re demanding the return, so there’s a little wriggle room there for the government.”

Democrats escalated their response following the Oval Office meeting between the two presidents. Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, a veteran lawmaker, said Trump sat in silence while Bukele “smeared” Abrego Garcia as a terrorist.

She said the Trump administration was “defying the law, disappearing people and yielding to a fellow tyrant at the expense of the victim’s family”.

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Speaking at the Cleveland Club of Ohio, Democratic congressman Ro Khanna of California said if the administration defied a court order, it would constitute a “red line”, and Republicans and Democrats alike needed to speak up.

Reisz, the law professor, said the situation was at least the start of a constitutional crisis. “This kind of uncertainty is part of the definition of a crisis … whether or not the president is going to follow the law.”

Meanwhile, Trump told reporters he would also like to deport American citizens to El Salvador but was not sure that it would be legal.

“We also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters,” he said.

“I’d like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country, but you’ll have to be looking at the laws on that.”

with AP

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