GREENBELT, MD—If the Justice Department had brazenly defied a judge’s order a year ago the way it did again today in the Abrego Garcia case, it would have been a banner headline and the buzz of legal circles.
But 10 months into the Trump II presidency, it’s become all too normal for his Justice Department to refuse to comply with direct court orders, to engage in bad faith charades in court, and to dare judges to do anything about it.
The case of Abrego Garcia — the El Salvadoran man wrongfully deported to his home country in March in violation of a immigration judge’s order — may be where the Trump administration has been most persistently defiant for the longest time. It’s refusal to correct its error and bring him back sparked a constitutional clash that landed at the Supreme Court, and it only brought him back after indicting him for unrelated crimes.
You don’t have to get too deep into the weeds to understand the significance of what happened today.
