WASHINGTON — Jennifer Vasquez Sura is anxiously waiting for the day her husband walks back through their front door.

After weeks of fear, frustration and public outcry, she and other advocates on Thursday celebrated a Supreme Court decision that orders the Trump administration to bring her husband, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, back to Maryland after he was mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador.

“This continues to be an emotional roller coaster for my children, Kilmar’s mother, his brother and siblings — and all our immigrant community, union workers, allies, and the community at large who have been pouring into our family’s fight as if it were their own — because it is all of our fights," she said. “I am anxiously waiting for Kilmar to be here in my arms, and in our home putting our children to bed, knowing this nightmare is almost at its end.”

The court acted in the case of Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who had an immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs.

It comes after a string of rulings on the court’s emergency docket where the conservative majority has at least partially sided with Trump amid a wave of lower court rulings that have slowed the president’s sweeping agenda.

In Thursday’s case, Chief Justice John Roberts had already pushed back U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’ deadline, and the justices said that her order must now be clarified to make sure it doesn’t intrude into executive branch power over foreign affairs, since Abrego Garcia is being held abroad. The court said the Trump administration should also be prepared to share what steps it has taken to try and get him back — and what more it could potentially do.

“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 court said in an unsigned order with no noted dissents.

The Trump administration must pursue its policy agenda in a way which respects the rule of law, protects residents and their families, and does not require Supreme Court intervention to correct frequent mistakes like this, he added.

The Trump administration had argued in a filing that Xinis’ order was a massive overreach in part because it implicates foreign policy, latching onto the word “effectuate” in her order to argue it would force the administration to engage in sensitive negotiations with a foreign power.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys wrote to the court that there was “no dispute” that he was there at the sole behest of the United States, referencing a deal struck between the administration and that of El Salvador to hold ICE detainees in its Terrorism Confinement Center. Xinis questioned the administration’s attorney about the deal last week but got few answers about it.

In its filing before the Supreme Court, the government said it could not disclose the details of that deal “for obvious reasons.”

The filing also attempted to back away from the concessions of the government’s own attorney, who appeared before Xinis last week.

That Justice Department attorney, Erez Reuveni, an experienced immigration litigator, had conceded that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported and even told Xinis that the administration had not provided a satisfactory answer as to why it cannot try to bring him back.

“Those inappropriate statements did not and do not reflect the position of the United States,” wrote D. John Sauer, solicitor general for the Justice Department, to the Supreme Court.

Sauer wrote that El Salvador, “may have its own compelling reasons to detain him” just days after another Justice Department attorney referred to Abrego Garcia in a separate filing as a “designated terrorist.”

In response, Abrego Garcia’s attorney blasted the suggestion, writing that he hadn’t lived in El Salvador in more than a decade and had no criminal past.

All eyes will now be on Trump and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, awaiting their next move. But also on El Salvador’s strongman President Nayib Bukele, who has won massive support in his country for his crackdown on criminal gangs, and has become increasingly cozy with Trump administration officials.

Mark Parker, the Baltimore City Council member representing District 1, said he was encouraged by the decision even as remains “angered by the reckless and unsafe conduct of this administration.”

Parker questioned the administration’s use of the word “administrative error.”

“It is not a mistake ― because everything, every safeguard, every part of due process, that would have prevented this ‘error’ from resulting in the detention and deportation of Mr. Abrego Garcia, has been ignored, watered down, or removed,” he said. “The rule of law seems to be an inconvenient barrier to be ignored in pursuit of mass deportation, and the tearing of Mr. Abrego Garcia away from his family and community ― despite his legal protections ― seems to be viewed as unfortunate but necessary collateral damage in pursuit of mass deportation.”

Chief Justice John Roberts had already pushed back Xinis’ deadline, and the justices said that her order must now be clarified to make sure it doesn’t intrude into executive branch power over foreign affairs, since Abrego Garcia is being held abroad.

“We are pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Kilmar’s rights and hope the government moves quickly to facilitate his return home, as ordered. We look forward to welcoming Kilmar home,” said Ama Frimpong, CASA’s legal director and co-counsel.

The court said the Trump administration should also be prepared to share what steps it has taken to try to get him back — and what more it could potentially do.

“Tonight, the rule of law prevailed. The Supreme Court upheld the District Judge’s order that the government has to bring Kilmar home. Now they need to stop wasting time and get moving,” said co-counsel Simon Sandoval-Moshenburg.

The administration has relied on a 2019 bond hearing in which an immigration judge accepted ICE’s use of a confidential informant to claim Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang, though he has never been charged with or convicted of a crime. His attorneys said there is no evidence he was in MS-13.

The administration has conceded that it made a mistake in sending him to El Salvador, but argued that it no longer could do anything about it.

The court’s liberal justices said the administration should have hastened to correct its ”egregious error” and was “plainly wrong” to suggest it could not bring him home.

“The Government’s argument, moreover, implies that it could deport and incarcerate any person, including U. S. citizens, without legal consequence, so long as it does so before a court can intervene,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, joined by her two colleagues.

In the district court, Xinis wrote that the decision to arrest Abrego Garcia and send him to El Salvador appears to be “wholly lawless.” There is little to no evidence to support a “vague, uncorroborated” allegation that Abrego Garcia was once in the MS-13 street gang, Xinis wrote.

Abrego Garcia, 29, was detained by immigration agents and deported last month.

He had a permit from the Homeland Security Department to legally work in the U.S. and was a sheet metal apprentice pursuing a journeyman license, his attorney said. His wife is a U.S. citizen.

In 2019, an immigration judge barred the U.S. from deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, finding that he faced likely persecution by local gangs. The government has argued his grant of “withholding of removal” was no longer valid because MS-13 had been designated a terrorist organization.

Striking a withholding of removal designation requires reopening a person’s case before an immigration judge. The government admitted it did not do that.

A Justice Department lawyer conceded in a court hearing that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported. Attorney General Pam Bondi later removed Reuveni, the Justice Department lawyer, from the case and placed him on leave.

Gov. Wes Moore released a statement about the ruling.

“We can be pro-public safety and adhere to the Constitution at the same time. As the Governor of Maryland, public safety is my number one priority. But our system of justice demands fairness,” Moore said. “The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously spoken that fairness is expected for Kilmar.”

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen also weighed in.

“Today, the Supreme Court made the only right choice: standing up for both this Maryland father, but also for the rule of law and due process in our nation. For our country and for the Abrego Garcia family, this ruling on the side of justice comes as a huge relief,” Van Hollen said in a statement. “But the administration should never have abducted Kilmar in the first place. It was shameful and they must bring him home now. I will fight alongside his family until they do.”

Bishop Angel Nuñez, the senior pastor at the Bilingual Christian Church of Baltimore, said the community has been up in arms about the case.

“It’s about time,” he said in response to the court’s latest ruling. “However, it seems like they are telling him to bring them back, but they are not forcing him.”

Nuñez wants the government to produce evidence of gang affiliation in this case and other cases where ICE is alleging MS-13 affiliation as cause for deportation.

“It was obviously that he not an MS-13 gang member,” he said. “Everyone was upset about it. If there is evidence that we don’t know about, why isn’t this coming out in the public? Please show it. We believe his wife and the attorney.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.