Reacting to the Supreme Court's stunning ruling that Donald Trump's administration must "facilitate" the return of a Maryland father who was mistakenly shipped off to a prison in El Salvador, MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos stated the devil is in the details.
Speaking with "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough, the attorney admitted he was just as surprised as anyone that the conservative-leaning court ruled unanimously in favor of the family of 29-year-old Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, but also pointed out that the ruling left some "wiggle room" for the anti-immigrant Trump DOJ.
"The order is a win for the Trump administration and at least that's how they're going to play it," Cevallos told the host. "Here's what I mean: a real win for Garcia would have been an order that says, 'Hey, administration, I hear the Salvadorian president is going to be here Monday, put Garcia on the plane seated next to him in a reclining seat, and he'd better be here Monday with the president.' That would have been a clear win."
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"The reason I say this, the administration is going to call this a win is there's a lot of space, a lot of loophole potential in this order," he elaborated. "Consider this: one of the lines that we put up there on the screen was that the court ordered him to be returned, or excuse me, to 'facilitate' his return so his case could be handled as if it was properly handled. Remember the 2019 order for Garcia by an immigration judge just really prevented his return to El Salvador? In theory, any of the other 193 countries out there might be perfectly alright. And if this case was handled the way it should have been, that could still result in his removal."
"And then there's even bigger wiggle room for the administration in the language with one word 'effectuate,'" he pointed out. "Yes, the lower court's order remains in place. The administration has to effectuate his return, but the court has to clarify what does it mean by effectuate, I guarantee you."
"And here I am saying it now: the administration is going to say that whatever the district court clarifies, effectuate means, the administration is going to say, 'Well, guess what we say: you don't have the power to order us to do that because you're essentially ordering us to engage in international relations,'" he predicted before adding, " ... and we're going to be right back here where we were this last week."
