A federal judge ordered the immediate release of Kilmar Abrego García from his immigration detention center.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said in her order Thursday that “since Abrego García’s wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been detained again, again without legal authorization.”
Xinis said the absence of an expulsion order prevents the government from expelling Abrego García from the United States.
Abrego García, a Salvadoran who had been living in Maryland with his wife and children, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT megaprison, despite a 2019 court order prohibiting his deportation to that country for fear of persecution, after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the MS-13 criminal gang, which he denies.
he was brought back to the US in June to face human trafficking charges in Tennessee, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
After being released to his brother’s custody in Maryland pending trial, he was arrested again by immigration authorities and is currently being held in a detention center in Pennsylvania.
Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a social media post after the ruling: “This is naked judicial activism by an Obama-appointed judge. This order has no valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts.”
Kilmar Abrego García speaks during a rally and prayer vigil for him before entering a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office on August 25, 2025 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Last month, the federal government, seeking to deport Abrego García to the West African nation of Liberia, asked Xinis to lift a ban. about his deportation to that country, saying that he had received guarantees from the Liberian government that he would not be persecuted or tortured if deported there.
In her order Thursday, Judge Xinis ordered the government to notify Abrego García of the exact time and location of your release and notify the court no later than 5 pm ET today.
In the 31 pages In the order that granted Abrego García’s habeas petition, Xinis detailed the expulsion of Abrego García to El Salvador, his return to the United States to face criminal charges and re-arrest in immigration custody.
“The circumstances of Abrego García’s detention since his release from criminal custody cannot be reconciled with the ‘basic purpose’ of holding him for deportation,” Xinis said.
Xinis, citing reports from ABC News and others, said that at the same time the government could have deported Abrego García to Costa Rica, his preferred country to deport him.
“Respondents’ calculated effort to take Costa Rica ‘off the table’ failed,” Xinis wrote. “Within 24 hours, Costa Rica, through Minister Zamora Cordero, communicated to multiple news sources that its offer to grant Abrego García residency and refugee status is, and always has been, firm, unbreakable and unconditional.”
“Respondents serially ‘notified’ Abrego García, while in ICE custody, of his removal to Uganda, then Eswatini, and then Ghana; but none of these countries were ever a viable option,” Xinis wrote.
The judge said Abrego García will receive instruction from the U.S. Office of Pretrial Services on the release conditions previously imposed in his criminal case.
In August, Xinis blocked the government from expelling Abrego García from the United States until the habeas case challenging his expulsion was resolved in court.
“The story of the Abrego García case is as well-known as it is extraordinary,” Xinis wrote in his decision Thursday.
