A federal judge in Maryland has temporarily barred immigration officials from re-detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia, one day after she ordered him freed from an ICE facility in Pennsylvania, amid an escalating legal fight over his deportation and detention.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis on Thursday ordered the immediate release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, finding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lacked a valid final removal order to justify holding him, according to the Daily Wire and other outlets. In her ruling, Xinis said that since Abrego Garcia’s return from wrongful detention in El Salvador, he had again been held "without lawful authority" and granted his petition for release.
On Friday, Xinis issued a separate temporary restraining order that prevents ICE from taking Abrego Garcia back into custody during a scheduled check-in at an ICE field office in Baltimore, multiple news organizations, including the Associated Press and The Guardian, have reported. The emergency order came after Abrego Garcia’s attorneys warned that immigration authorities planned to re-detain him shortly after his court-ordered release.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who has lived for years in Maryland and has a U.S. citizen wife and child, was previously deported to El Salvador and held in the country’s CECOT mega-prison in what U.S. courts later found to be an illegal removal, according to The Guardian and other reports. The Supreme Court earlier this year ruled that the Trump administration must facilitate his return to the United States and ensure his case proceeds as if he had not been improperly deported, the Daily Wire has noted.
Since being brought back to the United States, Abrego Garcia has faced federal human smuggling charges in Tennessee, to which he has pleaded not guilty, The Washington Post and the Daily Wire have reported. Prosecutors allege he helped transport migrants from Central and South America into the United States. His lawyers argue that the case is vindictive and retaliatory, and a federal judge in Tennessee has allowed them to pursue evidence on whether the prosecution is illegal retaliation, according to earlier court coverage by The Guardian.
In the immigration case, Xinis has sharply criticized the government’s handling of Abrego Garcia, saying that officials misled the court and pursued removal efforts without the necessary legal authority, according to Associated Press and Washington Post reports. Her latest order bars ICE from re-detaining him at least until further hearings are held on the legality of his detention and the government’s plans to deport him to a third country.
After leaving ICE custody and appearing for his Baltimore check-in, Abrego Garcia told supporters that he planned to continue contesting what he describes as injustices by the U.S. government, The Guardian has reported. He has also applied for asylum and other protections, and his legal battles have made him a prominent symbol in the political fight over President Donald Trump’s second-term immigration agenda.
The Department of Homeland Security has condemned Xinis’s decisions and signaled plans to appeal. In a statement reported by the Daily Wire, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the judge’s order freeing Abrego Garcia "naked judicial activism" and said the department would "continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts." The broader dispute over his detention, deportation and criminal case is expected to continue in federal courts in both Maryland and Tennessee.
