No, the President Has Not Defied a Supreme Court Ruling
President Donald Trump welcomes President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador to the White House April 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Win McNamee via Getty Images)
The exaggerations on both sides are spectacular. The truth? There’s less to the case than meets the eye.
Donald Trump has this week “defied a Supreme Court ruling” to “return” an “innocent person” being held in a Salvadoran “gulag.” That’s according to my colleague, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder, who says we are witnessing “the beginning of an American policy of state terror.”
He is referring to the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who has been deported to El Salvador. Perhaps you caught the meeting between Donald Trump and Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele in the Oval Office this week, when CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins asked the two leaders about the case (watch it here).
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