Forecaster perspectives
Sentinel forecasters in aggregate assess as “83% true” (65% to 100%) the statement that the Trump administration has disobeyed the Supreme Court so far. On the one hand, the Trump administration has done nothing to “facilitate” bringing Abrego García back to the US, and this White House’s tweet shown below clearly indicates that it won’t try to; on the other hand, it could yet still do so when the current news cycle subsides. On April 17th, forecasters estimated a 66% chance (50% to ~100%) that Abrego García will not be brought back to the US within the next 60 days (by June 17).
Data on the number of deportations in past administrations are available but can be difficult to compare between administrations; some up-to-date sources include refusals at the border due to Covid (“Title 42 expulsions”) under Biden, but other data have been discontinued. Perhaps a good comparison might be to the years 2012-2015, Obama’s second term, which saw a total of about 1.5M immigrants removed over all four years. The Trump administration has reportedly set a goal of removing 1M people in its first year. As of April 19, 3.6 months into Trump’s second term, the administration has deported 0.11M people. Removing 1M people by the end of 2025 would require a removal rate that is almost four times higher than the rate to date.
Our forecasters estimate a 32% (range, 15% to 70%) probability that the Trump administration will deport over 1M immigrants this calendar year. The administration has the intent, but obstacles include the courts, logistics, incompetence, and possible protection in sanctuary cities, although protection of immigrants by cities could lead to standoffs between local and federal officials. ICE’s recently granted access to IRS data on undocumented immigrants would likely make deportations easier. Paradoxically, those who pay taxes and have tried to work within the system are likely to be at greatest risk of deportation. DOGE personnel are also reportedly constructing a database linking Department of Homeland Security, Social Security Administration and IRS data on undocumented immigrants together, to facilitate deportations. If the Trump administration does deport at least 1M immigrants this year, then we think there will likely be a false positive rate of 0.3% to 5% regarding people mistakenly deported.
Our forecasters estimate a 14% (range, 10% to 25%) probability that Trump will invoke the Insurrection Act by July 1st, and a 22% (12% to 50%) probability that he will do so by the end of 2025. They were previously much higher, but were moved down by this CNN article that for now the Pentagon and DHS recommend against invoking the Act.
Summary of events
Starting in March The Trump administration deported over 200 immigrants they allege to be gang members and terrorists to a supermax prison in El Salvador. None of the men were given due process.
The Abrego García US Supreme Court case.
One case already reached the Supreme Court, which, on April 10th, ruled as follows in a 9-0 decision:
> The United States acknowledges that Abrego Garcia was subject to a withholding order forbidding his removal to El Salvador, and that the removal to El Salvador was therefore illegal. The United States represents that the removal to El Salvador was the result of an “administrative error.” The United States alleges, however, that Abrego Garcia has been found to be a member of the gang MS–13, a designated foreign terrorist organization, and that his return to the United States would pose a threat to the public. Abrego Garcia responds that he is not a member of MS–13, and that he has lived safely in the United States with his family for a decade and has never been charged with a crime.
> The application is granted in part and denied in part, subject to the direction of this order. Due to the administrative stay issued by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, the deadline imposed by the District Court has now passed. To that extent, the Government’s emergency application is effectively granted in part and the deadline in the challenged order is no longer effective. The rest of the District Court’s order remains in effect but requires clarification on remand. The order properly requires the Government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador. The intended scope of the term “effectuate” in the District Court’s order is, however, unclear, and may exceed the District Court’s authority. 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 heretofore entered by THE CHIEF JUSTICE is vacated.
The rest of the order contains a much more harshly worded statement from Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson, the court’s liberal judges.
Developments since the Abrego García Supreme Court case
The administration argued in court filings on April 13 that it is not obligated to help Abrego Garcia return to the US, and that it is only obligated to “remove any domestic obstacles that would otherwise impede the alien’s ability to return here. On April 14, Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller said “How are you going to expel illegal invaders from our country [...] if each and every deportation has to be adjudicated in [sic] a district court judge?”
In a meeting with Trump in the White House on April 15, El Salvador President Bukele told reporters that, “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.” In the same White House meeting, when Trump asked Miller about the Supreme Court ruling, Miller stated, “it was a 9-0 in our favor,” and argued that the administration could not be “compelled by anybody” to bring Abrego Garcia back.
This leaves the administration and the Supreme Court at an impasse. Bukele could release Abrego Garcia to the US, and the US could bring him back, if the administration wanted to do so. As a point of reference, the US has routinely negotiated for the return or release of citizens and even of non-citizens considered at risk in other countries. But on April 18, the White House tweeted the following:
For now, the Supreme Court has put a stop to further deportations to El Salvador. Last Friday, buses full of Venezuelans being transported to an airport in Texas by ICE turned around after the Supreme Court issued an order in the middle of the night that blocked all further deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members under the Alien Enemies Act. The Supreme Court’s order states, “The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court.”
Next steps for the court case
US District Judge Paula Xinis, who originally ordered the administration to return Abrego Garcia to the US and has requested daily updates, could hold members of the administration in contempt. A contempt of court recommendation by a judge in federal court would be “handled by the Department of Justice, which has the power to decide which cases it pursues, making it highly unlikely the Trump administration will choose to criminally charge its own officials.” On the other hand, judges could hold defendants in civil contempt, or appoint a private lawyer to prosecute the charge. President Trump could pardon a conviction. An unknown is if there is a point down this path where enough Republicans in Congress would attempt to force the administration to obey the courts.
Cases could also be returned to the Supreme Court, which itself also has few powers of enforcement—though in the case of a firm Supreme Court decision against the administration which is then disobeyed, Congress might impeach Trump. Republicans could face landslide losses in the 2026 midterm elections, the prospect or the eventuality of which could cause Republicans to change course
If the administration finds a way not to be curtailed by court orders, this sets a precedent that they can deport immigrants without due process, and generally establishes the pre-eminence of executive over judicial authority when it comes to deportations, at least in practice.
Plans for further deportations
The Trump administration is taking actions that show that it would like to deport potentially millions of undocumented immigrants. This month, a data-sharing agreement was signed that gives ICE access to the contact information of up to 7 million undocumented immigrants in IRS taxpayer data. DOGE is also creating a database on undocumented immigrants that combines data from the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration, and the IRS, and Palantir has won a contract to build a software tool for ICE to facilitate deportations as well. This month, ICE put out a request for proposals to build massive detention facilities for up to $45 billion, and a music-festival tent-housing company that has built facilities for ICE may end up building more. Former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince and other contractors have submitted a proposal to the administration to deport thousands of immigrants from US detention facilities to the maximum-security prison in El Salvador where Abrego Garcia and other deportees are being held.
US citizens are also under threat of deportation. During Trump’s White House meeting with Bukele on April 14, Trump told Bukele that, “homegrowns are next. The homegrowns. You gotta build about five more places. … It’s not big enough.” A reporter asked Trump, “You mentioned that you’re open to deporting individuals that aren’t foreign aliens, but are criminals, to El Salvador, does that include potentially US citizens, fully naturalized?” Trump replied, “If they’re criminals, and if they hit people with baseball bats over the head that happen to be 90 years old, if, uh, if they rape 87-year-old women in Coney Island, Brooklyn, yeah, yeah, that includes them. Why, you think they’re [a] special category of person? They’re as bad as anybody that comes in.”
The Insurrection Act
On January 20th, Trump declared a national emergency on the southern US border. In that declaration, he set a deadline for receiving a recommendation on whether to e the Insurrection Act by April 20th:
> Within 90 days of the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a joint report to the President about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.
The Insurrection Act gives the president the power to deploy the US military within the US under the President’s command, and to federalize the National Guards of the individual states. This would allow the Trump administration to deport more immigrants than is possible by ICE and CBP alone. Some on social media have confounded the Insurrection Act with martial law; invoking the Insurrection Act is completely different from declaring martial law.
CNN reported on Friday that Secretary of Defense Hegseth will not recommend invoking the Insurrection Act.
Implications and recommendations
As mentioned, forecasters believe the deportation of hundreds of thousands or millions of illegal immigrants is plausible. Conditions in the Salvadoran CECOT jail seem to be particularly bad, but it only has a capacity of 40K, although the Salvadoran government may build more such prisons.
For readers of this newsletter who are not US citizens, your position in the US seems more precarious, particularly if you politically oppose the administration on a high-profile political dispute, like Israel. Chances of withdrawing a green card or an already existing visa seem very small, while chances of being denied visas or renewals seem higher.
For US citizens who are particularly concerned and wealthy, it might be a good idea to get a residency or nationality in a second country, either through descent (e.g., Italian, German, British, etc.) or by briefly visiting a country like Uruguay, Mexico, Paraguay, Panama, etc.; this sometimes can be done through a few short visits rather than residing in a new country contiguously. We are also looking at what paranoid economic bets we could make for a worst-case scenario in the US.
For one forecaster, the most important danger gradually arises out of the potential invocation of the Insurrection Act. If he were to invoke it, Trump would have a force that is able to intervene in the US mainland. Commanders of that force might be selected for loyalty to Trump, and report directly to him. Eventually this could lead to a situation of permanent emergencies and a much greater expansion of presidential powers beyond Constitutional and congressional limits.
If the Trump administration disobeys a Supreme Court order, as it seems to be in the process of doing, the 2028 election could be much more contested if it falls into a Bush v. Gore scenario. For one forecaster, this is the most worrying outcome to watch out for.
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> Bukele could release Abrego Garcia to the US
Could he? I don’t know El Salvador’s legal system very well, but I do know that just because someone is incarcerated in an American prison it does not follow that Trump could release them. The US President has no legal authority to release a person from state prison. Do we actually know that Bukele has authority to release Garcia?
That is one hell of an unwarranted assumption. The US does sometimes try to get people released from foreign prisons, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. For the not case, see here for an example. I don’t know if the Trump administration even could get Garcia released if it wanted to. Neither do you. Neither do any of American judges issuing orders in this case. Even if there is something that El Salvador would accept in exchange for Garcia, (1) there is necessarily a weighing to be done of the cost of that thing versus the benefit of bringing Garcia back. Judges are not in a position to do that weighing, and are not attempting to do it. (2) If El Salvador can see that Trump is under a court order to get Garcia back, that puts Trump in a terrible negotiating position. It would essentially allow El Salvador to coerce whatever it wants from our government. That would be a terrible outcome. This is why negotiation with foreign governments is a function of the executive branch, not the judicial.
The various extraordinary renditions during the “War on Terror” seem to be an existence proof that the USA is able to act as it pleases in other countries, especially when it is focused on a small number of persons.
I agree that the country is not 100% successful but that does not prevent the nation from trying to act.
I don’t know with absolute certainty but I am really sure. I can observe that El Salvador has a strong presidential system, and Bukele a strong grip on power.
This is an interesting point about to what extent judges can make geopolitical judgment calls. The way they are handling this is by judging the administration on the steps it has taken. This could just be a strongly worded letter. So far that hasn’t happened.
Then you are massively overconfident. The US also has a strong presidential system, and our president cannot just free any prisoner he likes. Our president is under both legal constraints (he has no power over state prisons) and political constraints (freeing certain prisoners would look bad and he wants his party to win future elections). Unless you have an El Selvadoran law degree I don’t know about, or have consulted someone who does, you should not be particularly confident what powers Bukele has. But even if you are right that Bukele has the power to release Garcia, so what? Bukele doesn’t work for Trump. He heads his own sovereign government. What reason do we have to think that Trump could convince Bukele to release Garcia? Maybe you buy Trump’s claims to be the best deal-maker on earth, but I am skeptical.
> This is an interesting point about to what extent judges can make geopolitical judgment calls. The way they are handling this is by judging the administration on the steps it has taken. This could just be a strongly worded letter. So far that hasn’t happened.
I’m not entirely sure I follow what you are trying to say here. I agree that there is significant ambiguity in the word “facilitate”. If we read it as the administration has, that they are simply obligated to ask for Garcia’s release and, if Bukele agrees, to transport Garcia out of El Salvador, then that seems like a fine and reasonable response to what has happened here. If it turns out that this was not simply an administrative error as the administration claims, that someone in the government knew about the court order and intentionally defied it, then contempt proceedings against such person may be warranted. But if the courts interpret “facilitate” the way the liberal media is, as requiring Trump to get Garcia back regardless of the political or legal realities in El Salvador, then this situation may be equivalent to the courts ordering Trump to make the sun rise in the west and set in the east, and then being outraged when Trump doesn’t do it. That is the scenario that threatens to tear this country apart. That is the scenario that frightens me. And that is the scenario that you make more likely when you just assert, without evidence or reason, that Trump could get Garcia back if he wanted to.
> Unless you have an El Selvadoran law degree I don’t know about, or have consulted someone who does, you should not be particularly confident what powers Bukele has.
This is a good point. So see https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-29/how-a-salvadoran-gangster-duped-the-bukele-government-with-a-fake-scheme-to-catch-an-ms-13-fugitive-wanted-by-the-us.html in regards to a different individual being released by the El Salvadoran government—albeit that it may not have been fully legal under Salvadoran law as per https://elfaro.net/en/202210/el_salvador/26446/Police-Documents-Prove-Illegal-Release-of-MS-13-Leader-in-El-Salvador.htm
In short, Burkele seems to have the ability to do this, as demonstrated by the past actions of his government.
Furthermore, the government was able to move Garcia out of CECOT (into a different jail) as well as bring Garcia to Chris Van Hollen for a meeting, as per https://www.newsweek.com/kilmar-abrego-garcias-new-prison-location-revealed-trump-admin-2062317 (granted that this isn’t the same as releasing him or sending him out of the country).
> But even if you are right that Bukele has the power to release Garcia, so what? Bukele doesn’t work for Trump.
As per https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/kilmar-abrego-garcia-el-salvador-maryland-man-deported/ Chris Van Hollen was informed by the vice president of El Salvador that the reason Garcia can not be released, is because the US is paying El Salvador to keep him imprisoned.
While it is accurate to say that “Bukele doesn’t work for Trump” the fact that Garcia seems to be imprisoned solely due to the US paying for it, suggests that Garcia is constructively in US custody.
> What reason do we have to think that Trump could convince Bukele to release Garcia?
Well, threaten to stop the above payments, for one.
> If we read it as the administration has, that they are simply obligated to ask for Garcia’s release and, if Bukele agrees, to transport Garcia out of El Salvador, then that seems like a fine and reasonable response to what has happened here.
But have they even asked? There seems to be no public record that the administration officially asked for this. And in my view, Bukele’s public words about “smuggling Garcia” into the US is actually well-worded—he can’t force the US to accept and take Garcia in (absent an agreement from the US that they are in fact willing to take Garcia back). So it seems to me that Bukele’s public statements don’t contradict the view that the US administration has not yet asked for Garcia to be returned.
> But if the courts interpret “facilitate” the way the liberal media is, as requiring Trump to get Garcia back regardless of the political or legal realities in El Salvador
That might be the way the media is interpreting it but the courts are not. They’re simply asking what steps the administration can do, and what the administration has already done. In other words, the Executive is expected to take the lead here on determining what can be done—but the courts want it well documented (for fear that the administration is simply saying “We’ve tried nothing and are out of ideas”).
> this situation may be equivalent to the courts ordering Trump to make the sun rise in the west and set in the east, and then being outraged when Trump doesn’t do it.
Actually that’s a bad analogy. It’s not possible to make the sun rise in the west and set in the east. Whereas the US could, e.g., attempt to militarily invade El Salvador and take over the facility where Garcia is being held, and then free him. No court would order this; and it’s an astoundingly bad idea in this case. But it’s a possibility (even if not guaranteed).
More reasonably, the court could simply order that the US withhold payments to El Salvador. No court has even done that yet. The court hasn’t even required that the US send the kind of letter mentioned earlier.
The court is willing to let the Executive decide what steps to take, but there must be something attempted to “facilitate”.
> That is the scenario that threatens to tear this country apart. That is the scenario that frightens me.
I imagine that’s why the court isn’t ordering the administration to take any specific action (sending a letter, withholding payments, or worse). The court is trying hard to get the administration to show that it is indeed making the attempt to facilitate Garcia’s return while not overstepping its authority on the actual decision making process.
As the Supreme Court said that the courts should show proper deference to the fact that the Executive branch is responsible for things like foreign diplomacy and relationships with other countries, so it seems to me that the lower courts are trying to show that they are in fact providing this deference.
> And that is the scenario that you make more likely when you just assert, without evidence or reason, that Trump could get Garcia back if he wanted to.
I think the one thing that everyone agrees here is that “facilitate” doesn’t mean that the US could get Garcia back if El Salvador absolutely refuses. Just that the US has to try, e.g. by asking nicely.
I think I’m counting at least 3 levels of hearsay for this claim that the US is paying El Salvador to imprison Garcia. But we also know, see here, that the Trump administration did ask Bukele to release Garcia, and Bukele said no. That says to me that even if there are payments coming from the US, those payments are definitely not the only reason El Salvador has to keep Garcia imprisoned. They have other reasons of their own. If such payments are actually occurring, then I agree we should stop them and see what happens, but I would bet against it resulting in Garcia’s release.
I haven’t watched the entire interview, but in the article you linked, all of the quotes from Bukele here seem to be referring to whether he has the power to unilaterally cause Garcia to end up in the United States, not whether he has the power to cause him to be released from prison.
Agreed. I’d also add that, while it would be acceptable at least for someone in the US Administration to simply state that El Salvador’s administration did refuse to release Garcia (instead of, for example, demanding that such evidence can only come from Bukele himself), this hasn’t actually happened. No one will even go on the record as saying that they tried asking, or were aware of efforts to make this ask.
> I think I’m counting at least 3 levels of hearsay for this claim that the US is paying El Salvador to imprison Garcia.
You mean from CBS News to Senator Chris Van Hollen to El Salvadoran Vice President Felix Ulloa?
I’d have thought that a statement from the official El Salvadoran Vice President would have been fairly reliable.
Here’s another source for that information though, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/us/politics/trump-deportation-flights-hearing.html paraphrases White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as saying “The United States is paying El Salvador $6 million to take in the deportees,” (of which Abrego Garcia was one).
> But we also know, see here, that the Trump administration did ask Bukele to release Garcia, and Bukele said no.
I am familiar with the article—it was actually my source for Bukele’s “smuggling” quote. Another Bukele quote from the article is, “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
The closest that the article comes to saying that Bukele is refusing to send Garcia back is when it quotes Bukele as so: “said ‘of course’ he would not release him back to U.S. soil.” But as this is partly rewritten it is worth revisiting what Bukele actually said. Which is, “I hope you’re not suggesting that I smuggle a terroist into the United States. How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.” (Source: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815/gov.uscourts.mdd.578815.74.0_5.pdf )
So Bukele is refusing to smuggle Garcia back, and going on record as not having the power to return him to the United States. But perhaps Bukele would send Garcia back if the US guaranteed Garcia’s safe return and asked nicely in a well worded letter.
Also worth noting that the AP article is from April 14th but the CBS article reporting on Van Hollen and Felix Ulloa is from April 16. So I think the editors of the AP article might have just gotten it wrong and misquoted Bukele, but understandbly so because they didn’t have all the details (the reveal from Ulloa not happening for another two days).
If Bukele was misquoted and is simply refusing to smuggle Garcia in (which no one is asking for), then there’s no contradiction between the reported remarks of Bukele and Ulloa. But if Bukele is in fact saying he was asked and he refuses to send Garcia back, then he and Ulloa seem to disagree. (Though another hypothetical possibility that would fit is that El Salvador was indeed paid, and the US administration did ask for Garcia back as well as the payments (that is, asking for a refund), and Bukele refused and said he’d only send Garcia back if El Salvador was allowed to keep the money.)
Importantly, no one in the article or elsewhere (including in the court document submission) says that someone in the US administration asked an official of El Salvador to return Garcia. It’s never spelled out that someone has actually asked this, even though there’s an active court case related to that very point (so if someone had indeed asked, the evidence of this would likely have been submitted to that court—granted that we might not know about it if it was done in camera, but as of April 21 no submissions have ever been made under seal).
> If such payments are actually occurring, then I agree we should stop them and see what happens, but I would bet against it resulting in Garcia’s release.
Actually I would emphasize caution here, and precisely for that reason. Perhaps there are other consequences to stopping the payments that haven’t been publicly revealed? Or even that threatening to withhold payments blindly might inflame the situation and make it harder to get Garcia back, when instead offering a carrot would work better? The courts are correct not to directly order this (at least not at this early stage), it’s best left to the Executive to find the right way to facilitate Garcia’s return while otherwise managing the foreign affairs of the United States.
That said, another possibility is that the payments are actually a prepaid lump sum. That is, El Salvador got paid in full first and took in people, including Garcia, only afterwards. So the payments cannot be stopped because they’re already completed.
> That says to me that even if there are payments coming from the US, those payments are definitely not the only reason El Salvador has to keep Garcia imprisoned. They have other reasons of their own.
This also seems to contradict the CBS article, where Ulloa told Van Hollen that the payments were the reason that El Salvador could not release Garcia.
I think your contributions are sufficiently counterproductive (lengthy, wrong, uninformed) that per my “Reign of Terror” moderation policy I’m banning you from my posts. I met a person with your same name at a NY meetup a few years ago, and I don’t have anything against you as a person & wish you the best. Maybe I’m unduly annoyed because I see some of my worst qualities in this comment (maybe something like futile disagreeableness). FWIW I would have been more sympathetic with your stance a few months ago, but I think that we since have much more data. If you feel strongly about this and we have a mutual acquaintance that can intercede & vouch for you I’ll reconsider this.
No, the US has a system where power is divided across the three branches. Further, the President can release prisoners from federal prisons through a pardon.
Giving the benefit of the doubt here to the OP, but from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_system we have this definition:
> A presidential, strong-president, or single-executive system is a form of government in which a head of government (usually titled “president”) heads an executive branch that derives its authority and legitimacy from a source that is separate from the legislative branch. The system was popularized by its inclusion in the Constitution of the United States.
So perhaps “The US also has a strong-president system” as per the Wikipedia definition is what the reference was towards, which would have been accurate. Skimming over https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_El_Salvador and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_El_Salvador make me believe that this is also true of El Salvador (since the Presidency there also derives authority from the Constitution and thus separately from the legislative branch).