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A federal judge ruled Thursday that the Trump administration lacked the legal authority to continue holding Kilmar Abrego Garcia in an immigration detention center. He is fighting new deportation efforts following his wrongful removal to El Salvador in March and subsequent return to the U.S. over the summer.
In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland ordered that Abrego Garcia be released from the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, citing a lack of a final order of removal for him.
“His removal cannot be considered reasonably foreseeable, imminent, or consistent with due process,” Xinis wrote in a memo. She continued, “Since Abrego Garcia’s wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been re-detained, again without lawful authority.”
On Thursday afternoon, Abrego Garcia’s legal team said he has been released.
“Garcia is in the car. He has left the center,” the team said.
Abrego Garcia’s lead counsel in the case, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said Thursday: “We remain hopeful that this marks a turning point for Mr. Abrego Garcia, who has endured more than anyone should ever have to.”
“Today’s ruling is a powerful affirmation that the rule of law still matters,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “The Court made unmistakably clear that the government cannot detain a person indefinitely without legal authority, and that every agency involved must now comply fully and promptly with the Court’s directives.”
He said while the order is “an extraordinary victory for our client and for due process,” Abrego Garcia’s legal team will “stay vigilant to ensure that nothing undermines the Court’s decision.”
The Department of Homeland Security criticized the order.
“This is naked judicial activism by an Obama appointed judge,” Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokeswoman, wrote on social media. “This order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts.”
After Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States, the Trump administration detained him and has threatened to send him to multiple African countries and Costa Rica.
“Respondents serially ‘notified’ Abrego Garcia—while he sat in ICE custody — of his expulsion to Uganda, then Eswatini, then Ghana; but none of these countries were ever viable options, and at least two had not even been asked to take Abrego Garcia before Respondents claimed supposed removal to each,” Xinis wrote.
Xinis said the government “affirmatively misled” the court last month at a court hearing where the administration said Liberia was the only viable removal option and that Costa Rica had allegedly rescinded an offer to receive Abrego Garcia.
“Costa Rica had never wavered in its commitment to receive Abrego Garcia, just as Abrego Garcia never wavered in his commitment to resettle there,” Xinis wrote.
Immigrant rights group CASA said Abrego Garcia has a scheduled check-in at the Baltimore ICE Field office at 7:30 a.m. Friday. The last time Abrego Garcia appeared for an ICE check-in, he was taken into ICE custody during the appointment.
The ruling Thursday is the latest in a case that has highlighted the Trump administration’s enforcement policies in pursuit of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
The case first gained international attention when federal government officials admitted in April that they had made an “administrative error” that landed Abrego Garcia in the notorious Salvadoran megaprison known as CECOT even though a 2019 court order barred authorities from deporting him to his native El Salvador because of credible threats he faced from gangs there.
The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, a Salvadoran gang, who should not be allowed to stay in the U.S. Abrego’s family and attorneys have denied the gang affiliation accusations, adding that he has not been convicted of any crimes.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Abrego Garcia entered “illegally into the United States” in March 2012. He has said he fled “gang violence targeting his family” in El Salvador, court records show.
The government initiated removal proceedings in 2019 after police in Maryland arrested him while he was soliciting work outside a Home Depot and later turned him over to immigration authorities, according to court records. An immigration judge granted him “withholding of removal,” an order barring the U.S. government from deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador because of credible gang threats there.
The Trump administration deported him to El Salvador anyway, prompting an order from the Supreme Court in April requiring the federal government to facilitate his return to the U.S.
After much resistance from the Trump administration, Abrego Garcia returned to the U.S. in June and was immediately hit with human smuggling charges in Tennessee based on a 2022 traffic stop for which he was not charged at the time. He has pleaded not guilty and denied the allegations.
Under his release conditions, Abrego Garcia by court order must head to his brother’s house in Maryland, where he will live ahead of the trial on the Tennessee charges. He must actively seek employment, and he must not obtain a passport or travel outside the Middle District of Tennessee or the District of Maryland unless pretrial services approves it in advance.
The court order also dictated that he must not have contact with any person who is or may be a co-defendant, a victim or a witness in the Tennessee investigation or prosecution, except family members. It also said that he cannot possess a firearm, use alcohol excessively or use narcotics and that he must submit to drug testing. He also must not have any contact, directly or indirectly, with any known MS-13 gang member.
All of those conditions of release were ordered by a Tennessee judge, in conjunction with his pending federal criminal trial there on human smuggling charges, which begins in Nashville on Jan. 26.
Gary Grumbach is an NBC News legal affairs reporter, based in Washington, D.C.
Nicole Acevedo is a news reporter for NBC News.
Daniella Silva is a national reporter for NBC News, focusing on immigration and education.
I am NBC News’ Senior Homeland Security Correspondent.
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