Well, Well, Well, Look Who’s Still Doing Absolutely Nothing
Sen. Chuck Schumer pledged “extraordinary action” should Trump ever defy a Supreme Court order. “Extraordinary action,” to Schumer, is apparently a tweet.
Photo: Getty Images In DepthPolitics
Last week, the Supreme Court issued a 9-0 ruling ordering the Trump administration to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident mistakenly sent to El Salvador’s notoriously brutal, maximum-security prison, CECOT. But because the Court said the administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release—not “effectuate” it—they claim the Court ruled in their favor and they don’t have to lift a finger. This is the logic of a kindergartener—all in service of disappearing a legal U.S. resident and father of three young children, in alarming defiance of the most powerful Court in the country.
About a month ago, this—the constitutional crisis unfolding right now—was the red line that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Democrat, drew for the Trump administration. After passing a budget bill that empowered Trump and Elon Musk to continue their hatchet job on the federal government in March, Schumer told MSNBC he didn’t yet believe our democracy faced an existential threat, but claimed that would be the case if and when “Trump doesn’t obey the Supreme Court.” Should that happen, Schumer vowed “extraordinary action.” Now, here we are. And… nothing.
Every day of this second Trump era feels increasingly unknowable, volatile, impossible to predict—but one thing we can be certain of is that no savior is about to come bursting out of the feckless Democratic establishment.
Abrego Garcia’s case only reached the Supreme Court because the Trump administration defied a federal judge in Maryland who required them to bring Abrego Garcia home immediately. (The Maryland judge wrote that the administration has to “facilitate and effectuate” Abrego Garcia’s release, while the Court wrote that the “effectuate” part of it was unclear.) Then, on Wednesday, a federal judge found “probable cause” to hold the administration in criminal contempt for willfully disregarding orders to stop transferring deportees to CECOT. According to the New York Times, of the 238 men the U.S. sent to CECOT, only 32 “faced serious criminal accusations or convictions.”
Initially, the administration admitted Abrego Garcia’s deportation was the result of a clerical error. But they’ve since done a 180. On Wednesday evening, Attorney General Pam Bondi declared that Abrego Garcia is “not coming back to our country,” releasing a document of equal parts recycled and debunked misinformation claiming he’s a gang member and domestic abuser. “Maryland is safer because he is gone. And that woman that he is married to and that child he had with her, they are safer tonight…,” Bondi said, not even naming Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Stefania Vasquez Sura, who’s publicly pleaded for his return.
To be clear, the gang affiliation claim is unsubstantiated and a federal court ruled in 2019 that Abrego Garcia can’t be deported to El Salvador, where his life would be at risk; and the administration’s claim that he’s an abuser appears to stem from a former protective order Sura once filed. “We were able to work through this situation privately as a family, including by going to counseling,” Vasquez Sura said in a statement through her lawyer. “Kilmar has always been a loving partner and father, and I will continue to stand by him and demand justice for him.”
Trump to Bukele: “Home-growns are next. The home-growns. You gotta build about five more places. It’s not big enough.” pic.twitter.com/o20thGNK9e
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 14, 2025
Alas, every claim the administration has made about Abrego Garcia is neither here nor there: There isn’t a single allegation—especially if it’s just allegations—that would justify disappearing someone to a foreign gulag. Nevertheless, on Monday, the White House hosted El Salvador’s far-right president Nayib Bukele to baselessly smear him as a “terrorist.” Bukele, while sitting next to Trump, smugly asked, “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.” It was an exercise in shamelessness: a vile power play akin to the behavior of an abuser, a smug challenge to see who would try and stop them.