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The Kilmar Precedent
How the Trump administration is creating a Constitutional crisis over the case of Kilmar Garcia
The unfolding situation involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia represents not merely an immigration case gone wrong, but potentially a fundamental challenge to the separation of powers that has underpinned American democracy for nearly 250 years.
On April 10, 2025, the United States Supreme Court issued an unambiguous order: the Trump administration must return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man the Trump administration had deported to El Salvador despite his being under court protection. The administration’s response has been apparent defiance of the highest court in the land.
“When a branch of government begins to ignore judicial orders, we enter dangerous Constitutional territory,” explains Yale Law Professor Akhil Reed Amar. “The framers designed our system with checks and balances precisely because they feared the concentration of unchecked power.”
A Man Made Invisible
The case’s human dimension proves equally disturbing. Kilmar Abrego Garcia had been under explicit judicial protection when ICE agents removed him from the United States and returned him to El Salvador — the very nation from which he had fled, fearing for his life. He was placed in…
