Later in 2019, a U.S. immigration judge shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faced persecution there by local gangs that had terrorized his family. The Trump administration deported him there anyway, later describing the mistake as “an administrative error” but insisting he was in MS-13.

An ambiguous Supreme Court ruling may have invited the Trump administration to refuse to try to return the illegally deported Maryland father.