What happened
A federal judge in Maryland Thursday ordered the immediate release of Kilmar Abrego García from an ICE detention facility in Pennsylvania, ruling that the government was holding the Salvadoran immigrant “without lawful authority.”
Abrego García, whose wrongful deportation to a notorious El Salvador prison in March became an early flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown, was freed shortly before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’ 5 p.m. deadline and was home with his family by Thursday night, his lawyers said.
Who said what
Xinis’ ruling was a “stinging defeat” for Trump, The New York Times said, and the “latest twist” in Abrego García’s “long and byzantine saga” from the El Salvador prison to a jail cell in Tennessee on disputed human smuggling charges, then back to ICE detention after a brief respite at home. Despite that winding path, the reason for his release was “quite simple,” Xinis wrote: The judge who barred his removal to El Salvador in 2019 never issued a “final order for removal.”
Xinis also criticized the Trump administration’s ongoing threat to deport Abrego García to an African country where he has no ties. Government lawyers “did not just stonewall” the court, she said, but “affirmatively misled” it by falsely claiming Costa Rica had withdrawn its offer to receive him.
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What next?
Homeland Security Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, who previously vowed Abrego García would “never go free on American soil,” said the administration would “continue to fight this tooth and nail.” An immigration judge Thursday night issued Abrego García a final removal order, and he was ordered to appear at an ICE office in Baltimore today, The Washington Post said, “leading his lawyers and supporters to worry that he could be detained again.”
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