U.S. judge orders Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from ICE detention

A judge ordered the immediate release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported and brought back to the United States to face criminal charges.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland said Mr. Abrego Garcia was re-detained “without lawful authority” upon his return to the United States. The order means he can return home to Maryland, at least temporarily.

The Department of Homeland Security said the decision was a “naked judicial action” and “lacked any valid legal basis.”

He was deported to El Salvador in March despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation, and the case became the focus of the government’s immigration crackdown.

Judge Sinise wrote in his ruling that the government did not have a deportation order and therefore could not deport Mr. Abrego Garcia “at this time.”

Mr. Abrego Garcia was married to a U.S. citizen, lived in Maryland for many years, and came to the United States illegally from El Salvador as a teenager.

The Trump administration claims Mr. Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 criminal organization, which he denies.

In 2019, he and three other men were arrested in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities.

At the time, a judge granted him protection from deportation on the grounds that he might face persecution by criminal gangs in his home country.

In June, he was returned to the United States, where he was arrested and taken to Tennessee to face human smuggling charges. He pleads not guilty.

Mr. Abrego-Garcia was subsequently released from prison in Tennessee and placed in the custody of his brother in Maryland.

He was told to go to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for inspection, where he was detained.

Judge Sinise said Thursday that he must now abide by the conditions of his release from a Tennessee prison and cannot be deported from the country.

The judge initially temporarily barred the government from deporting him to a third country while he heard his challenge to his detention.

In his order, Judge Sinise said the government had indicated it was considering deporting him to Uganda, Swaziland, Ghana and later Liberia.

The judge said Costa Rica offered to take Mr. Abrego Garcia away, but the government did not accept the offer.

Immigration detention cannot be used for punishment and cannot continue indefinitely, the judge wrote in Thursday’s 31-page order.

She said the first three African countries were never “viable options” and that Costa Rica “never wavered in its commitment to receive Abrego Garcia, just as Abrego Garcia never wavered in its commitment to resettle there”.

“Whatever the purpose of his detention, it was not for the ‘essential purpose’ of timely deportation to a third country,” she wrote.