A federal judge ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s “immediate release” from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody on Thursday.
“Since Abrego Garcia’s return from wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been re-detained, again without lawful authority,” U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis, an Obama appointee, wrote in her opinion.
Xinis wrote that he “has been held in ICE detention to effectuate third-country removal absent a lawful removal order.” She noted during a hearing in November that the immigration judge who granted Abrego Garcia withholding of removal to El Salvador in 2019 did not actually specify that he should be deported.
Abrego Garcia, an alleged MS-13 gang member, was deported by mistake in March to El Salvador, the only country he could not be removed to, and returned to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee.
Even if Abrego Garcia could have been removed, the government “did not take any steps to remove Abrego Garcia to the country which had offered to take him, Costa Rica,” Xinis wrote, noting they instead notified him of expulsion to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and lastly Liberia.
“This time, when the Court sought information about Liberia and Costa Rica so to fairly assess the validity of Abrego Garcia’s claims, Respondents did not just stonewall,” Xinis wrote. “They affirmatively misled the tribunal. They announced that Liberia is the only viable removal option because Costa Rica “does not wish to receive him,’…and that Costa Rica will no longer ‘accept the transfer’ of him.”
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