A federal judge on Thursday ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man the Trump administration erroneously sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador, to be immediately freed from immigration detention.
In the order, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said Abrego Garcia was held at a notorious El Salvador prison known as CECOT without “lawful authority.”
Xinis noted that after the experience he had at CECOT, Abrego Garcia had been re-detained illegally and that his case demanded immediate intervention. Since he had been held in ICE custody in the Trump administration’s bid to deport him to yet another country, freeing him immediately was the only “proper” decision.
In October, the government said it wished to send Abrego Garcia to Liberia.
Xinis preliminarily blocked his removal to the West African nation after he raised concerns about potentially being persecuted or tortured there.
The Trump administration first deported Abrego Garcia to the megaprison in El Salvador in March, ignoring a 2019 court order he had secured allowing him to stay in the U.S. out of fear of being persecuted or harmed should he be forced to return to his native country. The government accused him — on very thin and often unsubstantiated evidence — of illegally transporting migrants and being tied to MS-13 gang activity. His removal was necessary for the protection of the “public interest,” federal officials claimed.
After spending months at CECOT, Abrego Garcia was first returned to the U.S. in June to face his indictment. He described a torturous experience at the prison and said he was repeatedly beaten from the moment he boarded a bus from an airport in El Salvador headed for CECOT.
Once there, Abrego Garcia said guards would assault him with wooden batons or force him and fellow prisoners to kneel from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. He claimed he was constantly on edge as other prisoners would violently attack each other with little to no intervention by prison guards and that he lost 31 pounds within the first two weeks he was incarcerated.
He has pleaded not guilty to smuggling migrants and denies any association with MS-13.
He was returned to the U.S. in June to face trial, and Xinis allowed him to stay with a family member in the meantime.
But in August, he was detained again when he appeared for an ICE interview. He was then sent to a detention facility in Phillipsburg, Pennsylvania. Government lawyers wasted little time telling Xinis they would send Abrego Garcia out of the U.S. once more, suggesting he would be deported to Uganda or the small African nation of Eswatini though he had zero ties to either country. Lawyers for the married father of two pushed back, saying he feared being tortured or persecuted in those countries as well. When Xinis blocked his deportation to Eswatini, the administration asked for him to be sent to Liberia and claimed that Liberian officials told U.S. officials Abrego Garcia’s safety could be assured.
Abrego Garcia requested that he be sent to Costa Rica if he were deported. Costa Rican officials said they would be willing to take him as a resident or refugee there and keep him “under humanitarian conditions that guarantee the full respect for his rights and liberties.”
Xinis noted in her opinion Thursday that the administration made a “calculated effort” to take Costa Rica “off the table” and that government officials had “affirmatively misled” the court about viable locations for his removal.
“Despite this tortured history, Abrego Garcia’s arguments in favor of release are quite simple. He contends that his detention is without lawful authority because Respondents have no final order of removal authorizing as much under the third-country removal statute, 8 U.S.C. §1231. Thus, says Abrego Garcia, his release is compelled,” she wrote. “Alternatively, Abrego Garcia maintains that Respondents’ steadfast refusal to remove him to Costa Rica amidst constant threats of removal to a series of African countries that expressed no or limited desire to take him can only be construed as punitive and contrary to the purposes of ICE detention.”
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called Xinis’ decision “naked judicial activism by an Obama appointed judge” in a post on X.
“This order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts,” McLaughlin wrote.
Xinis ordered government officials to notify Garcia of the exact time and location of his release on Thursday. It must be done no later than 5 p.m. ET.
An attorney for Abrego Garcia did not immediately return a request for comment.