Judge Orders Immediate Release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia in Blow to Trump Administration’s Deportation Case
The Department of Homeland Security denounces the ruling as ‘naked judicial activism by an Obama-appointed judge.’
The Salvadorian national embroiled in a high-profile immigration dispute with the Trump administration notched a win on Thursday when a federal judge ordered for his immediate release from custody.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis granted Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s petition for freedom, ruling in a 31-page decision that Immigration and Customs Enforcement lacked authority to hold him absent a final removal order from an immigration judge.
“Because respondents have no statutory authority to remove Abrego Garcia to a third country absent a removal order, his removal cannot be considered reasonably foreseeable, imminent, or consistent with due process,” Judge Xinis wrote.
The Department of Homeland Security swiftly condemned the ruling. Spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin called it “naked judicial activism by an Obama-appointed judge,” adding that “this order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts.”
Mr. Garcia was thrust into the national spotlight in March 2025 when he was deported to his native El Salvador despite an immigration judge’s prior ruling that he faced safety risks there. He had entered America illegally as a teenager and had been living in Maryland for years with his American wife and child.
The government later acknowledged that his removal to El Salvador was an “an administrative error” and he was brought back to America in June after the Supreme Court ordered the government to facilitate his return.
The Trump administration is seeking deport him to a third country and maintains that Mr. Garcia was a member of the criminal gang, MS-13, and has a history of violence. According to a court filing shared by Homeland Security, Mr. Garcia’s wife sought a domestic violence restraining order against him in 1995, claiming he punched, scratched, and ripped off her shirt.
Mr. Garcia, meanwhile, faces charges of human smuggling in Tennessee, to which he has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers have argued that the indictment was brought against him with “selective or vindictive” motives.
