Judge orders Kilmar Abrego Garcia to be released from ICE custody

Calling his months-long detention “troubling,” Maryland Federal Judge Paula Xinis on Thursday granted Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s request to be released from ICE custody.

The native of El Salvador and resident of Maryland has become a symbol of the Trump administration’s policy of mass deportations after he was wrongfully sent to a prison in El Salvador in the spring due to an “administrative error,” contrary to a judge’s order. The government later returned him to the U.S. but immediately charged him in Tennessee in a separate criminal case with smuggling undocumented immigrants. He denies those charges.

Judge Xinis today wrote that the government has never produced evidence of a removal order for him.

“No such order of removal exists for Abrego Garcia,” Xinis wrote. “When Abrego Garcia was first wrongly expelled to El Salvador, the Court struggled to understand the legal authority for even seizing him in the first place.”

Despite that, the government tried to deport him to various countries in Africa without any reasoning, even as Abrego Garcia was willing to leave the U.S. and go to Costa Rica.

“Respondents’ conduct over the past months belie that his detention has been for the basic purpose of effectuating removal, lending further support that Abrego Garcia should be held no longer,” she wrote.

In a statement to NPR, Department of Homeland Security’s spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin blasted Judge Xinis’ decision.

“This is naked judicial activism by an Obama appointed judge,” McLaughlin said. “This order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts.”

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys did not immediately respond to NPR’s requests for comment.

Today’s decision is unlikely to end his legal saga.

The case has raised key questions of due process under President Trump and his crackdown on immigrants — both without and with legal status — in the U.S.

Abrego Garcia was arrested in March and sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador despite a 2019 court order that barred his deportation because of the “well-founded fear” of gang persecution there.

Abrego Garcia had been in ICE in the U.S. custody since August while various court battles played out.

He still faces conditions on his release as part of the criminal charges in Tennessee.

In that case, he’s accused of transporting undocumented migrants from Texas to other parts of the U.S. The government alleges he did this for years starting in 2016. Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty.

Abrego Garcia has also been accused of being a member of the MS-13 gang, allegations he strongly denies.

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., visited and met with Abrego Garcia in April while he was detained at El Salvador’s CECOT.

In a statement Thursday, Van Hollen said the Trump administration “has sought to deny Kilmar Ábrego García his rights to due process and fair treatment by our justice system.”

“Today’s ruling by Judge Xinis – requiring the government to immediately release him – is a clear repudiation of those attempts and a forceful stand for our Constitution and the rights of all those in our nation,” Sen. Van Hollen said.