Listen to this article
Estimated 4 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
On Thursday, a U.S. judge ordered the immediate release of Kilmar Ábrego García — whose wrongful deportation became a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown — ruling that the government never secured a formal order for his removal from the country.
The order from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland means Ábrego García will be allowed to return temporarily to his Maryland home despite repeated declarations from Trump administration officials that he would never again be free in the U.S.
The saga began in March when Ábrego García was wrongfully deported to a prison in his native El Salvador and then brought back to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges.
His case has become a symbol of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, with Trump officials portraying Ábrego as a danger to public safety.
Critics accuse the administration of trampling legal rights in its bid to deport millions living illegally in the United States.
White House vows to appeal
Ábrego García, 30, has been held in immigration detention since August, when immigration authorities arrested him shortly after he was released from custody in his criminal case. The order calls for him to be released immediately from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Pennsylvania.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters the Trump administration would appeal the decision.
“The administration opposed this activism from a judge who is really acting as a judicial activist, which we’ve unfortunately seen in many cases across the country,” Leavitt said during a press briefing.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose mistaken deportation to El Salvador became a political flashpoint in the Trump administration’s stepped-up immigration enforcement, is being returned to the United States to face criminal charges related to what the U.S. says was a massive human smuggling operation that brought immigrants into the country illegally.
Photo credit: Abrego Garcia Family
An attorney for Ábrego García praised the decision as “upholding due process and the rule of law.”
“Today’s decision granting Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release is a victory not just for one Maryland man but for everyone,” Andrew Rossman, a lawyer for Ábrego García, said in a statement.”
Xinis, who was nominated by former Democratic president Barack Obama, found Ábrego García was entitled to release in part because an immigration judge had not issued a formal deportation order in 2019, when that judge barred his deportation to El Salvador because of a risk of gang persecution.
Xinis wrote that without a formal order, the Trump administration has “no lawful basis to detain and remove” Ábrego García, so “his continued detention must end.”
U.S. attempting deportation again
The decision is the latest legal victory for Ábrego García in his battles with the Trump administration.
The U.S. Supreme Court previously ordered the government to facilitate his return from El Salvador and federal judges in Tennessee rejected prosecutors’ requests to keep him in criminal custody to await a trial.
Ábrego García’s lawyers asked Xinis to order him released from immigration detention, arguing that his continuing confinement was unlawfully designed to punish him rather than to prepare for a second deportation.
Lawyers for the Trump administration argued he could be legally detained for at least six months while awaiting removal. They maintained that the 2019 decision from the immigration judge implied that Ábrego García was eligible for deportation and should be construed as a formal deportation order.
The Trump administration is still attempting to deport Ábrego García for a second time, cycling through several African nations as potential destinations before Liberia agreed to accept him temporarily on a humanitarian basis.
Three days after being released from custody, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who has become a flashpoint of immigration crackdowns in the U.S., was detained again by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to face human smuggling charges and potential deportation to Uganda.
Ábrego García’s lawyers have said he will agree to be deported to Costa Rica, a Spanish-speaking Central American country that previously agreed to offer him refugee status. The Trump administration has not said why it will not agree to Costa Rica, citing only the need for continuing negotiations.
Ábrego García, a sheet metal worker who entered the U.S. illegally, had been living in Maryland with his wife and children until ICE arrested him and sent him to a Salvadoran mega-prison known for harsh conditions.
Ábrego García has also pleaded not guilty to U.S. charges accusing him of helping to transport migrants living illegally in the U.S. A federal judge overseeing that case has found a reasonable likelihood that the prosecution was “vindictive” and brought by the Trump administration in retaliation for Ábrego García challenging his March deportation.
He will remain subject to release conditions ordered as part of his criminal case, which include home detention and electronic monitoring.
