House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is demanding the judiciary enforce its ruling that the Trump administration return a Maryland man they mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
In an appearance on MSNBC, host Jen Psaki asked Jeffries what power House Democrats have to force the return of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was in Maryland and had a valid U.S. work permit since 2019. Jeffries said House Democrats only had the power to “shape public sentiment,” but the judiciary, most notably the Supreme Court, could take concrete action.
“The Supreme Court, and/or the federal district court, actually needs to enforce its order, and the vehicles that are available for the court to do that relate to contempt, and that contempt can be directed at a variety of different members of the Trump administration, including, but not limited to the secretary of state, and/or his or her designees, and the secretary of homeland security, and/or his or her designees for the court to determine,” Jeffries said on Inside with Jen Psaki.
Jeffries: The Supreme Court and or the federal district court actually needs to enforce its order. And the vehicles that are available relate to contempt, and that contempt can be directed at a variety of different members of the trump administration, including, but not limited… pic.twitter.com/g8GEJ3zrAQ
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 15, 2025
The Trump administration said on Monday it is under no obligation to retrieve Abrego-Garcia from the notorious prison in which he is being held. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, at the White House to meet with President Donald Trump, declined to return the man, who federal officials maintain is a gang member and thus was the reason for his deportation.
What Jeffries is suggesting is an extraordinary move not seen in U.S. history, one that would trigger a constitutional crisis. As the situation has never occurred before, the ability of the Supreme Court to hold Trump or his officials in contempt is an uncertain matter.
Yale Law professor Nicholas Parrillo and his researchers studied 15,000 judicial decisions relating to the topic. The three avenues the Supreme Court could take — the fine of an agency, the fine of an individual, or the imprisonment of an individual — all carry their own problems. Imprisonment, the most extraordinary, is almost unheard of in U.S. history, and has never gone down well.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CLAIMS IT HAS NO DUTY TO RETURN DEPORTED MIGRANT FROM EL SALVADOR
“In light of these prudential concerns, the judiciary has shown great reluctance to imprison officials. Imprisonment has occurred only twice, never for more than a few hours, and in both instances, the biggest losers proved to be the imprisoning judges, one of whom was thrown off the case for bias, while the other recused himself to avoid a similar fate,” Parrillo wrote in 2017 in the Harvard Law Review.
In nearly all the incidents studied, the agency or court eventually backed off to avoid bringing contempt of court to the executive branch.
