Even CNN is now quietly walking back the mainstream narrative that the Trump administration is defying the Supreme Court in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the deported illegal immigrant whose situation has ignited yet another media firestorm.
On Tuesday, CNN Chief Legal Correspondent Paula Reid appeared on air with Jake Tapper and delivered a rare dose of legal clarity that deflated the hysteria bubbling up from the left. According to Reid, the Supreme Court did not order the Biden-to-Trump-deported Salvadoran national back to the U.S.—despite what headlines would have you believe.
“They did not order the administration to return him to the United States,” Reid said flatly. “They said that they need to facilitate this return. They could have said, ‘We order him returned,’ but they didn’t do that.”
That sound you heard was the progressive media’s favorite talking point crumbling in real-time.
Reid called the Supreme Court’s language “mushy,” explaining that the administration is well within its legal rights, especially given the vague directive to facilitate—not mandate—his return. Let’s be real: if the Court wanted to issue a clear-cut mandate, it knows how to do that. It didn’t. And now the Left is spinning ambiguity into lawless outrage.
The case revolves around Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was deported to El Salvador on March 15. He’s now sitting in CECOT, the country’s supermax prison known for housing MS-13 members and violent criminals. The Trump administration deported him after he exhausted legal protections and immigration courts found he lacked grounds to remain.
But critics pounced when the Court used the phrase “facilitate and effectuate” his return, interpreting it as a demand rather than a diplomatic courtesy. What they didn’t account for? El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele isn’t playing along.
“How can I return him to the United States? Am I going to smuggle him?” Bukele asked sarcastically during an Oval Office visit. “We just turned from the murder capital of the world to the safest country in the Western Hemisphere. We’re not going back by releasing criminals.”
Trump officials agree. Attorney General Pam Bondi emphasized the U.S. will provide a plane if needed—but made it crystal clear: “The decision is not up to us.”
This isn’t defiance. It’s foreign policy, and as Reid noted, the judiciary has no authority to order the president to dictate another nation’s law enforcement decisions.
Bottom line? The media got ahead of itself again. And even CNN had to admit it.
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