The 4th Circuit Is Not MAGA

The 4th Circuit panel writes refusing to stay the trial court and refusing to issue a mandamus:

"The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order," he wrote. "Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear."

Oh, and that “f-word” all the pundits found so concerning?

"The Supreme Court’s decision does not, however, allow the government to do essentially nothing," the judge wrote. "It 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. 'Facilitate' is an active verb. It requires that steps be taken as the Supreme Court has made perfectly clear."

Serious occasions call for serious reflections:

The Executive will lose much from a public perception of its lawlessness and all of its attendant contagions," he wrote. "The Executive may succeed for a time in weakening the courts, but over time history will script the tragic gap between what was and all that might have been, and law in time will sign its epitaph."