Federal judge orders Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from ICE custody ‘immediately’

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — In a Dec. 11 court filing, a federal judge in Maryland ordered the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national and Maryland resident at the center of a high-profile immigration case, from ICE custody “immediately.”

Abrego Garcia’s case became a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s implementation of its immigration policy after his arrest and deportation to a notorious prison in El Salvador was later found unlawful by U.S. courts.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said in her order that Abrego Garcia “is entitled to immediate release” and that the Trump administration had “defied this Court’s orders” in the case.

“Because Abrego Garcia has been held in ICE detention to effectuate third-country removal absent a lawful removal order, his requested relief is proper,” Xinis wrote. “Separately, 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.

Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, wrote in a post on X, “This is naked judicial activism by an Obama appointed judge. This order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts.”

Although the government acknowledged in court filings that there was an administrative error in deporting Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador — as he had previously been subject to a court’s protection from deportation — the Trump administration said it was not seeking to return Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has a child, to the U.S. He has not been convicted of a crime, but the Trump administration has alleged Abrego Garcia is an MS-13 gang member. His lawyers have said there is no evidence he is in that gang.

Abrego Garcia was eventually brought back to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee filed after the Trump administration was ordered to return him to the U.S. He has pleaded not guilty.

He surrendered to U.S. immigration authorities in Baltimore on Aug. 25, and officials have sought to deport him to Uganda or Liberia. He has been held in the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to carry out deportations of some immigrants, who lack legal authorization to live and work in the U.S., to what are known as “third-country removals.” The people subject to these orders are sent to countries not specifically identified in their removal orders or to countries with which they have no preexisting ties.

“Since Abrego Garcia’s return from wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been re-detained, again without lawful authority,” Xinis wrote. “For this reason, the Court will GRANT Abrego Garcia’s Petition for immediate release from ICE custody.”

Catholic social teaching on immigration balances three interrelated principles — the right of persons to migrate in order to sustain their lives and those of their families, the right of a country to regulate its borders and control immigration, and a nation’s duty to regulate its borders with justice and mercy.

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