(NEW YORK) — A federal judge has ordered the immediate release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from immigration detention.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said in her order Thursday that “since Abrego Garcia’s wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been re-detained, again without lawful authority.”
Xinis said that the absence of a removal order prevents the government from removing Abrego Garcia from the United States.
Last month, the government — seeking to deport Abrego Garcia to the West African nation of Liberia — asked Xinis to dissolve a ban on his removal to that country, saying it had received assurances from the Liberian government that he would not be persecuted or tortured should he be deported there.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who had been living in Maryland with his wife and children, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which he denies.
He was brought back to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
After being released into the custody of his brother in Maryland pending trial, he was again detained by immigration authorities and is currently being held in a detention facility in Pennsylvania.
Xinis, the judge in Abrego Garcia’s immigration case, in August blocked the government from removing him from the United States until the habeas case challenging his removal was resolved in court.
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