Ignoring SCOTUS
Plus: A deep dive into the likelihood of China invading Taiwan, a weak dollar, Kasparov sounds constitutional crisis alarms, and more...
Movement in Abrego Garcia case: Yesterday, a panel of judges with the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the administration's attempts to stay a court order that would have released Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador's Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
"The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration last week to facilitate the release of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man that three government officials admitted was mistakenly sent to El Salvador's most notorious prison, along with several hundred other alleged gang members," writes Reason's C.J. Ciaramella. "However, the Trump administration has done nothing to comply with that order; it insists it has no power to return Abrego Garcia from another sovereign state—nor does a court have the authority to force it to do so."
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Note too that Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele was in the Oval Office on Monday, so it's not like Trump has no contact or sway with the foreign power holding Abrego Garcia in its custody.
"The federal courts do not have the authority to press-gang the President or his agents into taking any particular act of diplomacy," the Trump administration argued, requesting an emergency stay from the 4th Circuit, which did not find its arguments compelling.
"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," writes Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson, who was appointed under President Ronald Reagan, in yesterday's ruling. "Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear."
"The government asserts that Abrego Garcia is a terrorist and a member of MS-13. Perhaps, but perhaps not," continues Wilkinson. "Regardless, he is still entitled to due process. If the government is confident of its position, it should be assured that position will prevail in proceedings to terminate the withholding of removal order. See 8 C.F.R. § 208.24(f) (requiring that the government prove 'by a preponderance of evidence' that the alien is no longer entitled to a withholding of removal). Moreover, the government has conceded that Abrego Garcia was wrongly or 'mistakenly' deported. Why then should it not make what was wrong, right?"
Wilkinson then takes issue with how the Trump administration has responded to the Supreme Court's demand that it "facilitate" the return of Abrego Garcia: "'Facilitation' does not permit the admittedly erroneous deportation of an individual to the one country's prisons that the withholding order forbids and, further, to do so in disregard of a court order that the government not so subtly spurns. 'Facilitation' does not sanction the abrogation of habeas corpus through the transfer of custody to foreign detention centers in the manner attempted here. Allowing all this would 'facilitate' foreign detention more than it would domestic return. It would reduce the rule of law to lawlessness and tarnish the very values for which Americans of diverse views and persuasions have always stood."
"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," concludes Wilkinson, who strikes a properly alarmed tone. "This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time."
It's not clear what the Trump administration will do in response.
Odd response from Bukele: Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D–Md.) says he visited CECOT and was denied entry, only to have Abrego Garcia handed over to him temporarily for a meeting, looking totally fine.
I said my main goal of this trip was to meet with Kilmar. Tonight I had that chance. I have called his wife, Jennifer, to pass along his message of love. I look forward to providing a full update upon my return. pic.twitter.com/U9y2gZpxCb
— Senator Chris Van Hollen (@ChrisVanHollen) April 18, 2025
Bukele's commentary:
Now that he's been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador's custody ???????????????????????? https://t.co/2xVt4SNOGn
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) April 18, 2025
Van Hollen had told reporters in San Salvador that denying Abrego Garcia access to his lawyers "is a violation of international law" and that "El Salvador is a party to the international covenant on civil and political rights. El Salvador has signed and ratified that covenant. And that covenant says, and I quote, 'A detained or imprisoned person shall be entitled to communicate and consult with his legal counsel,'" Van Hollen added. It's not clear what will happen to Abrego Garcia from here on out; as for Bukele, expect more gleeful tweeting.
Scenes from New York: Trump administration to take over Penn Station renovation, per The New York Times.
QUICK HITS
- Possibly my favorite episode yet, though it's a rather dark subject matter. Why should China's weakness matter to us? How does decline plus ambition create a lethal combination? How do Chinese propagandists capitalize on scandals within our domestic politics? And what would a Taiwan invasion actually look like?
- "Since mid-January, the dollar has fallen 9% against a basket of currencies, a rare and steep decline, to its lowest level in three years," notes Bernard Condon for the Associated Press. "'The safe haven properties of the dollar are being eroded,' said Deutsch Bank in a note to clients earlier this month warning of a 'confidence crisis.' Added a more circumspect report by Capital Economics, 'It is no longer hyperbole to say that the dollar's reserve status and broader dominant role is at least somewhat in question.'"
- "Exactly 20 years ago, I retired from professional chess to help Russia resist Putin's budding dictatorship. People were slow to grasp what was happening there too: Putin's bad, but surely he'll stop short of—and you can fill in the blank with a dozen things he did to destroy Russia's fragile democracy and civil society, many of which Trump is doing or attempting to do in America today," writes Garry Kasparov for The Atlantic. He grants that "America's institutions and democratic sentiment are far stronger than in the flawed, fragile state Putin took over from Boris Yeltsin 25 years ago" when "Russia was a mere eight years removed from Soviet totalitarianism." But, argues Kasparov, "the American opposition should spend less time criticizing the content of the administration's executive actions—eliciting sympathy for a deported individual, say, or decrying the impact of Trump's tariffs on 401(k) plans—than focusing on its suspect methods."
The man who RFK Jr. just hired to run his autism study
1) Doesn't have a medical degree
2) Ran experiments where he injected autistic children with a puberty-blocking drug
3) Was fined $10,000 by the state of Maryland for doing all this without a medical license pic.twitter.com/apWvy8HTlW— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) April 16, 2025
- Something lighter, as a palate cleanser, in honor of Egg Season: "How To Raise Backyard Chickens," by me.
