Former acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said the order from a federal judge to return deportation flights to the U.S. was "nonsense."
Wolf told CNN during an interview that the entirety of immigration and related deportation cases underway will go to the Supreme Court for final determination.
"I do think it'll end up before the Supreme Court. Look, the judge's ruling to begin with was nonsense to turn planes around in the middle of those flights," said Wolf.
Wolf pointed out that many people are ignoring some of the key legal underpinnings of rulings that support the Trump administration's actions.
"If you remember, the Supreme Court has already said in one case that that type of filing doesn't belong with this judge. It actually belongs in the state of Texas in the Fifth Circuit. So there's more to be played out here," Wolf said, adding, "And obviously there's more declarations by the Department of Justice."
In the case of deported alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Wolf said he's not a U.S. citizen, so efforts to return him after being sent to his home country of El Salvador, even when ordered by a court, don't make sense.
"He has a final order of removal to be removed from the United States. So this idea that he is to come home, home being the United States, which he is, again, not a citizen of, is just not in the cards. He has no legal right to be here in the United States. And so he should be removed."
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., went to El Salvador this week in an attempt to bring Garcia back to the U.S., but he was turned away by the government. Other Democrats have said they will make similar attempts.
Wolf said the determination by the Trump administration that Garcia is connected with MS-13 is all that's needed to initiate removal from the country. "At the end of the day, again, I think it's very, very important to say MS-13 gang member, a foreign terrorist organization, you have the ability to remove those folks."