The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to lift a judge’s order requiring the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador.

The court’s emergency ruling instructs the lower judge to clarify the language of her order but said she acted properly in ensuring that Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s case is handled “as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” 

“The District Court should clarify its directive, with due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs. For its part, the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps,” the order reads. 

There were no noted dissents. 

“In the proceedings on remand, the District Court should continue to ensure that the Government lives up to its obligations to follow the law,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a separate statement, joined by the court’s two other liberal justices.

The administration acknowledges Abrego Garcia was wrongly removed but argued the courts cannot mandate his return since he is now in the hands of Salvadoran authorities, who are detaining him in the country’s notorious CECOT prison. 

Abrego Garcia has lived in Maryland since 2011, when he was 16 years old. In 2019, an immigration judge issued an order preventing authorities from deporting him back to El Salvador over concerns he would face violence there. 

Despite the order, Abrego Garcia was aboard one of a series of March 15 flights that left U.S. soil and ultimately landed in El Salvador. The Trump administration has since blamed it on an “administrative error” but argues it is powerless to bring him back. 

“Courts cannot order the Executive to conduct the country’s foreign relations in a particular way,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court filings. 

After Abrego Garcia’s family sued, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, an appointee of former President Obama who serves in Maryland, ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s return.

The Supreme Court’s ruling upholds the thrust of Xinis’s order but directs her to clarify the term “effectuate,” warning that it is otherwise unclear and could be interpreted in a way that exceeds her authority.

Xinis had ordered the administration to comply by this past Monday, but Chief Justice John Roberts  put that deadline on hold until the Supreme Court resolved the administration’s emergency appeal. The high court noted the deadline is no longer effective but did not set a new date.

The Trump administration has accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the MS-13 gang based on a report from a confidential informant, who claimed he was involved with the international criminal gang in New York.

But Abrego Garcia’s family says he never lived in New York, contesting that he has any gang ties. Abrego Garcia is married to a U.S. citizen and is the father of a disabled son who is also a U.S. citizen. 

The Trump administration is paying the Salvadoran government $6 million to hold deportees imprisoned there for the next year. 

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers blasted the Trump administration for pushing “speculative difficulties of compliance” as a rationale for not seeking the man’s return. 

“To the extent returning Abrego Garcia from a U.S.-contracted facility regularly visited by U.S. officials proves impossible, or requires the Presidential diplomacy the Government suggests, the Government may present those facts to the district court,” his attorneys wrote in an apparent nod to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who filmed a video while visiting the facility. 

“But the Government cannot have license to evade a court order based on hypothetical obstacles that are nothing more than a figment of its imagination.” 

Abrego Garcia’s mistaken deportation has been noted in other cases, as those suing over Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to the same facility say the error shows the risk of deporting men to the prison with zero outside review. 

And like Abrego Garcia, many of the men say they are not affiliated with any gang. 

The case is one of a series of emergency applications the Trump administration has filed at the Supreme Court, which have been met with mixed results. 

The justices previously lifted orders blocking the administration from invoking the Alien Enemies Act, freezing $65 million in teacher grants and firing thousands of probationary employees.

But the administration has not always emerged victorious. The court last month refused a request to cancel nearly $2 billion worth of foreign aid payments.