Imagine getting a court order telling you to do something, then just... not doing it. No fine. No jail time. No handcuffs. Now imagine you’re the government, and the highest court in the country tells you to do something really important, like bring a wrongfully deported man back to the U.S., and you still stall, dodge or flat-out refuse. What are the consequences?

Turns out, very few.

This is the situation unfolding right now for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, despite a court order that explicitly prohibited his removal. The Supreme Court stepped in, telling the Trump administration to “facilitate” his return. The administration’s response? A carefully worded shrug.

According to Politico, the Justice Department claimed the Supreme Court didn’t say how they needed to help Abrego Garcia return — just that they should help if he somehow gets back to a U.S. port of entry on his own. So, they’re doing nothing to actually extract him from a Salvadoran prison. This is despite a federal judge ordering daily updates on their efforts. Instead, officials are citing state secrets and foreign policy privilege as reasons for keeping the public in the dark. It certainly didn’t help matters when El Salvador President Nayib Bukele publicly refused to release him during a White House visit.

All-in-all, it’s a masterclass in foot-dragging. The scary part is, this isn’t new.

How U.S. checks and balances appear to fail when the executive defies the courts

America’s entire system is built on three branches of government: Legislative, executive and judicial. They’re meant to keep each other in check. But what happens when one branch, like the executive, says, “Nah, we’re good”? The honest answer appears to be that not much really happens, especially if judges are the only ones pushing back.

Take Richard Nixon. The Supreme Court ordered him to hand over incriminating Oval Office tapes during the Watergate scandal. He did and then almost immediately resigned. But what if he hadn’t? No SWAT team storms the White House (this isn’t Civil War, as amazing as that film was). The judicial system may have the authority, but sending U.S. Marshals to enforce an order against a sitting president would cross into uncharted legal territory and probably trigger a constitutional crisis.

More recently, courts ruled against Donald Trump’s efforts to end DACA and add a citizenship question to the Census. He lost those legal battles, but no officials were held in contempt. No one was fined. In fact, Chief Justice John Roberts even wrote that the rationale behind the census change was “contrived.” That’s a polite way of calling it a lie. Still, nothing happened.

Even when judges push back, they often stop short of forcing actual compliance. Instead of jail and personal fines, it’s typically just more litigation, more delays and, often, more spin.

Government defiance of court orders erodes the rule of law

When judges issue orders and government officials ignore them, it shakes the whole idea of rule of law. If everyday people can’t skip out on court orders without consequences, why can the government?

As Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, pointed out in a recent court filing (per The Atlantic): “They claim that the court is powerless to order any relief. If that’s true, the immigration laws are meaningless — all of them — because the government can deport whoever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want, and no court can do anything about it once it’s done.”

And that’s exactly the danger.

If any line of defense in the American legal system can be sidelined by executive arrogance or political calculation, then what good are they? What happens when an administration just doesn’t care what the courts say?

Seemingly, the only way to counter that is for the people to make it impossible to ignore.

How other countries have enforced accountability in government

In South Korea, two former presidents, Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak, were imprisoned for corruption and abuse of power. No one said, “Well, that’s the executive branch, nothing we can do.” They were tried, sentenced and publicly held accountable. In that same country, Yoon Suk Yeol was removed from office by the Constitutional Court after his attempt to impose martial law and deploy troops to the National Assembly was deemed a grave violation of democratic principles. Yoon now faces criminal charges, including insurrection, which carry the possibility of life imprisonment or even the death penalty (though executions have not occurred in South Korea for decades).

Even in France, former President Nicolas Sarkozy was convicted and sentenced for illegal campaign financing. These systems aren’t perfect, but their courts didn’t just hand down rulings and hope the president felt like listening.

In the U.S., bench rulings can expose misconduct, but they often rely on the very people they’re ruling against to carry out the judgment. And when that person sits in the highest office in the land, enforcement becomes more about political will than legal obligation.

It’s true that the States impeached presidents before. Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Trump were all formally charged by the House of Representatives — with Trump being impeached twice. But in each case, the Senate refused to remove them from office. Trump’s eventual reelection, despite the impeachments, multiple indictments and civil fraud judgments, is striking, to say the least. What was intended as the strongest check on executive power has become so politically fractured that even clear abuses often result in spectacle rather than accountability. The process rarely delivers personal consequences, and almost never leads to real penalties.

Why government accountability can’t just be symbolic in nature

This isn’t about partisan politics. It’s about any administration feeling like it’s above the law. Whether it is denying immigrants their rights, defying court rulings or slow-walking results, the message being sent right now is pretty concerning. If you’re in power, you can afford to stall long enough for the outrage to die down. It’s not that the system is broken, but that it was never designed to hold the powerful accountable quickly.

So, yes, the Supreme Court can issue a ruling. But unless we force the issue (in the media, in the courts, in the streets and in Congress), then the consequences will continue to be what they’ve always been for the powerful: A slap on the wrist, if that.