As reported in WaPo, the executive position is not refusal, but inability to comply on the requested timeline. They said they can and will provide the information on Tuesday.
This seems to be a significantly different narrative than is inferred by piecing together the broken updates provided by NYmag.
For example, in the Supreme Court ruling Justic Sotomayor included the following statement:
"The United States Government arrested Kilmar Ar-mando Abrego Garcia in Maryland and flew him to a “terrorism confinement center” in El Salvador, where he has been detained for 26 days and counting. To this day, the Government has cited no basis in law for Abrego Garcia’s warrantless arrest, his removal to El Salvador, or his confinement in a Salvadoran prison. "
So:
* Warrant-less arrest
* Government admitted it was in error
* 4 weeks in a foreign jail
And it's OK for the DOJ to say "we want 4 more days" to develop a plan that you asked us to start developing more than a week ago?
They don't know where his (living?) body is.
It is an extraordinary and unprecedented situation, and I'm not sure what the SCOTUS decision requires because the situation is such a mix of diplomacy and DOJ actions.
Does the head of ICE just call the president of el salvador? Does the order require DJT to do it? What if Bukele says "no"?
Either way, from a constitutional perspective there is a big difference between the executive saying they can't do something and flat out refusing.
The administration, at every step, is buying time against the inevitable.
Why are they buying time? Can someone not just pay the guard $100 to find out where the fuck he is? It doesn't make sense. My conspiracy angle is they need 4 days to figure out how the hell they are going to explain the current situation, whatever that is.
I agree that from a practical sense, the POTUS could (and should) just pick up the phone, call the president of el Salvador, and ask politely to send him back.
It is unclear if there is even a legal contract in place.
It is really all quite unpresidented.
On returning to the US, he was imprisoned. Physically being unable to pay was not held to be a valid excuse to miss child support.
Somehow when it comes to holding citizens for contempt against a court order, it is no problem that the citizen was powerless to fulfill the order. But if an official does it then everything is fine.
At some point I would hope the courts see through this. Maybe El Salvador can keep the guy forever and we can't do anything about it. And then just like the hostage, the judge should be able to keep these people in jail for contempt until the guy is released, whether it ever happens or not. They owned it when they did it, too bad so sad if they cannot fix it and they're held in contempt.
In fact, it is a reason not to do just that. This is pretty well established in law.