[U: Fourth Cir. Denies Any Stay.] Noem And Tangerine 2.0 Correctly Denied Any Stay, In Garcia Case In Maryland. He Should Be On A Flight Home, Already.

Updated at Noon -- the Fourth Circuit (see Appeal no. 25-1345) has denied Tangerine any stay of the order to put him on a flight home by tonight. That is clearly correct. End update.

Welp -- once again, the hubris and malignancy of Kristi Noem was in high dungeon, this past week/weekend. As was that of Pam Bondi.

Bondi (likely on orders from Stephen Miller, Noem and Tangerine 2.0) has now effectively fired two layers of US Attorneys (who, in her view. . . "let" this order get entered). That is, she fired them for not engaging in what would have been a fraud upon the court, after her own agents publicly admitted they grabbed the wrong guy, and without so much as a cursory march past any judge, dumped him in the worst hell-hole in the Western Hemisphere. Damn.

And so, from the able USDC Judge's 22 page opinion (a PDF) -- denying Tangerine 2.0 / Noem any stay, as published yesterday (on a Sunday):

. . .In 2019, an immigration judge -- acting under the authority delegated by the United States Attorney General and pursuant to powers vested by Congress -- granted Plaintiff Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia (“Abrego Garcia”) withholding of removal [Ed. Note: Thus he was granted relief DURING Trump's first term!], thereby protecting him from return to his native country, El Salvador. ECF No. 1 ¶ 41; ECF No. 1-1. Such protection bars the United States from sending a noncitizen to a country where, more likely than not, he would face persecution that risks his “life or freedom.” See Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A); see also 8 C.F.R. §§ 208.16–.18 & .24 (setting forth the standard for withholding of removal and the procedures required for its termination).

Six years later, without notice, legal justification, or due process, officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), a subagency of the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), put him on a plane bound for the Terrorism Confinement Center (“CECOT”) in El Salvador. ECF No. 1¶ 59.

Neither the United States nor El Salvador have told anyone why he was returned to the very country to which he cannot return, or why he is detained at CECOT. See Hr’g Tr., Apr. 4, 2025, 25: 13–14 (Mr. Reuveni: “We have nothing to say on the merits. We concede he should not have been removed to El Salvador.”); see Hr’g Tr., Apr. 4, 2025, 34:25–35:5 (The Court: “[W]hat basis is he held? Why is he [in CECOT] of all places?. . .” Mr. Reuveni: “I don’t know. That information has not been given to me. I don’t know.”).

That silence is telling. As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador -- let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere. . . .

Having confessed grievous error, the Defendants now argue that this Court lacks the power to hear this case, and they lack the power to order Abrego Garcia’s return. ECF No. 11 at 3. For the following reasons, their jurisdictional arguments fail as a matter of law.

Further, to avoid clear irreparable harm, and because equity and justice compels it, the Court grants the narrowest, daresay only, relief warranted: to order that Defendants return Abrego Garcia to the United States. . . .

Under her orders, then -- he is due back here stateside by midnight tonight.

What sort of a monster must Noem be, if she instructed her AUSAs to argue that -- once dumped in the hell-hole, BY these same ICE agents, and thus the US Government -- that same US Government was powerless to right the known wrong?!?

नमस्ते