A federal judge in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Thursday ordered the release of Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia from federal immigration custody in Pennsylvania - a long-awaited update in an extraordinary case that has dominated international headlines and federal court dockets for nearly 10 months.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered Abrego Garcia released from the ICE Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, Pa., on the grounds that the Trump administration had not obtained the final notice of removal order that is needed to deport him to a third country, including a list of African nations they had previously identified for his removal.
"Since Abrego Garcia's return from wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been re-detained, again without lawful authority," Xinis said in her order on Thursday.
"For this reason, the Court will GRANT Abrego Garcia's Petition for immediate release from ICE custody."
The order Thursday rested on the court's determination that ICE had not obtained a final notice of removal needed to remove Abrego Garcia from the U.S. Without that removal order, Xinis said, Abrego Garcia could not remain detained in federal immigration custody.
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Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign suggested in November that the immigration judge who ruled in 2019 that Abrego Garcia could not be removed back to his home country of El Salvador had "meant," or implied a final order of removal - a notion Xinis dismissed in her ruling.
"No such order of removal exists for Abrego Garcia," she said.
Xinis had said in November that without final notice of removal, Abrego Garcia would be "at a minimum" entitled to certain relief under Supreme Court precedent in Zadvydas v. Davis, which bars the government from indefinitely detaining migrants without removal.
Xinis used a separate memo opinion Thursday to tick through, in extemporaneous detail, the court's unsuccessful, five-month effort to obtain information from the Trump administration about ICE's plans to deport Abrego Garcia to the four African countries it had identified for his removal - Uganda, Ghana, Eswatini, and Liberia - and why Costa Rica, in their telling, was no longer an option.
"Respondents did not just stonewall. They affirmatively misled the tribunal," said Xinis, who previously likened her careful and exhaustive style of questioning to "eating an elephant - one bite at a time."
It's unlikely Xinis's consideration of the case is completely over, and she previously noted that a motion for sanctions remains pending in Abrego Garcia's civil case.
The Justice Department is expected to challenge the order, though whether it will do so via the immigration removal process, or via the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, remains to be seen.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday afternoon that the Trump administration would "absolutely" be appealing Xinis' order, which she described as another instance of "activism" from a federal judge.
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Abrego Garcia's status has been at the center of a legal and political maelstrom since March, when he was deported to his home country of El Salvador, in violation of a 2019 court order and in what Trump officials acknowledge was an "administrative error." Xinis ordered then that Abrego Garcia be "immediately" returned to the U.S.
Critics argue the months-long legal fight that ensued has allowed the Trump administration to test its mettle on immigration enforcement, as well as its ability to slow-walk or evade compliance with federal courts.
Senior DHS and Justice Department officials, for their part, have disputed that accusation.
They have also been sharply critical of Xinis and other federal judges presiding over deportation cages, whom they have repeatedly accused of overstepping their authority as a district judge.
"This order lacks any valid legal basis, and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Thursday in response to the order.
Upon his return to the U.S. in June, Abrego Garcia was immediately taken into federal custody in Nashville and detained on human smuggling charges, stemming from a 2022 traffic stop.
Government officials later acknowledged that the investigation into the traffic stop began when Abrego Garcia was still detained in El Salvador, prompting new questions as to the process of securing the indictment.
A federal judge in Tennessee has been hearing from the government and Abrego Garcia's lawyers on his motion to dismiss that case on the grounds of vindictive and selective prosecution.
A hearing on the motion to dismiss has been scheduled in Nashville for early next month.
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Xinis had also pressed Trump officials on why they could not deport Abrego Garcia to the third county of Costa Rica, whose government had granted the necessary assurances that they would not detain him or refoul him back to his home country of El Salvador.
Trump officials previously told her in court that Costa Rica was "off the table," though they did not provide evidence.
Subsequent court filings appear to show that Costa Rica had not reneged on its agreement to accept Abrego Garcia into their country, casting renewed doubt on that claim.
The order from Xinis comes after lawyers for the Trump administration repeatedly asked Xinis to dissolve an emergency order she handed down in August, which required Abrego Garcia to remain in U.S. immigration custody, and within 200 miles of her court.
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Xinis's order also ostensibly allows Abrego Garcia to remain in the U.S. with his brother, pending trial in the criminal case in Nashville.
The Trump administration previously tried and failed to remove Abrego Garcia to the African countries of Liberia, Eswatini, Uganda and briefly, Ghana.
Xinis noted in late November that the government cannot take any of those steps without the final notice of removal order.
"You've raised all these arguments, and they all depend on me having a withholding of removal order," Xinis said then. "You can't 'fake it 'til you make it.'"
