Kilmar Abrego Garcia cannot be detained by ICE, federal judge rules

A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from holding Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported to a Salvadoran megaprison last year, in ICE custody while he awaits trial in Tennessee.

Judge Paula Xinis, a Barack Obama appointee, ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration has “done nothing to show that Abrego Garcia’s continued detention in ICE custody is consistent with due process,” ordering that he remain free on a set of stringent release conditions.

Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador last March ignored a court order that held that he could not be transferred there because of threats to his safety posed by Salvadoran gangs. His deportation became a flashpoint at the heart of the Trump administration’s widespread immigration crackdown and rebuke of the judicial system.

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S., but when he returned, he was swiftly arrested and prosecuted on charges of human smuggling in Tennessee, to which he pleaded not guilty.

Abrego Garcia sought to have the case dismissed, arguing it was vindictive prosecution by the Trump administration. The judge in that case ordered Abrego Garcia be released while those claims proceeded. When he returned home to Maryland, he was arrested again and detained during an immigration check-in by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Xinis ordered Abrego Garcia’s release from the Pennsylvania jail where he was being held in December, saying the administration did not have the legal authority to detain him without a clear path for his removal to a third country.

The Trump administration has since made attempts to detain Abrego Garcia again.

The Department of Homeland security has accused Abrego Garcia of living in the country illegally, along with being a known MS-13 gang member, human trafficker and child predator, and that he physically abused his wife.

Xinis’s ruling on Tuesday did not touch on DHS’ calls for third country removal, but Xinis said the administration has not secured the necessary travel documents to facilitate such a removal.

Abrego Garcia’s motions hearing in his criminal case in Tennessee over his claim of vindictive prosecution is next week.