Judge orders immediate release of Kilmer Abrego-Garcia
A federal judge ordered ICE to release Kilmer Abrego Garcia after his wrongful deportation and months of detention.
A judge ordered the release of a Salvadoran immigrant being held by federal immigration officials, arguing the Trump administration had no legal basis to deport him and misled him during a hearing last month.
U.S. District Judge Paula Kishinis in Maryland has ordered the immediate release of Kilmer Abrego Garcia, who was detained and mistakenly deported to El Salvador earlier this year. Abrego-Garcia returned to the United States in June, but was arrested again in Tennessee on federal charges of human smuggling.
Sinis’ order, filed Thursday, Dec. 11, is the latest development in a lawsuit that has put the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies in the spotlight. However, it is unlikely to be the final decision on the issue. The Justice Department is likely to appeal the ruling.
Abrego Garcia, who was born in El Salvador and entered the United States illegally in 2012, was living with his wife and three children in Beltsville, Maryland, when he was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents near his home in March.
He was among hundreds of alleged members of the MS-13 and Venezuelan Torren de Aragua gangs that the government deported to El Salvador on March 15. Mr. Abrego-Garcia was deported even though a previous order had prevented his return to his home country.
The Justice Department said his deportation was the result of an administrative error, but he denied that he was a member of the MS-13 gang.
In his order, Sinis said it was “troubling” that the Justice Department continued to detain Abrego-Garcia for months on the grounds that he would be deported to another country without taking any steps to actually remove him from the United States.
Sinis said the government had no authority to send him to a third country without a legal order to remove him, but she said there was no such order.
At a hearing last month, Justice Department lawyers informed the court that they had no choice but to send Abrego-Garcia to Liberia because Costa Rica withdrew its proposal to detain him there, Sinis wrote.
But Costa Rica never withdrew its offer, Sinis wrote, citing reports.
“This clearly remains an inconvenient truth” for the administration, he wrote, and said government lawyers “positively misled” the court.
“More importantly, the government’s refusal to recognize Costa Rica as a possible option for deportation and the ‘misrepresentation’ that Rivera was the only country to take him all reflect that whatever purpose was behind his detention, it was not for the ‘fundamental purpose’ of timely third-country deportation,” she said.
Kunis said Abrego-Garcia should no longer be detained because there is no legal order to remove him and the government’s actions over the past few months have raised questions about why he was detained.
Even if he is released, Abrego-Garcia still faces criminal charges in Tennessee.
A federal grand jury in Nashville indicted him on May 21 on charges of human smuggling. The indictment alleges that from 2016 to 2025, he and other unnamed people conspired to bring illegal immigrants to the United States from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador and other countries.
Abrego-Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Natalie Neisa Alland is a senior reporter at USA TODAY. Contact her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her at X @nataliealund.
Michael Collins writes about the intersection of politics and culture. He is a veteran reporter who has covered the White House and Congress. X: Follow him at @mcollinsNEWS.
