Feds blocked from deporting Abrego Garcia upon release

GREENBELT, Md. (CN) — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that ICE cannot take Kilmar Abrego Garcia immediately into custody following his pending release from criminal detention in Tennessee, ordering his return to Baltimore and requiring a 72-hour window for him to challenge any removal to a third country.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued the order immediately following U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr.’s ruling that Abrego Garcia must be released pending his criminal trial on two counts of immigration-related human smuggling.

“The court shares plaintiffs’ ongoing concern that, absent meaningful safeguards, defendants may once again remove Abrego Garcia from the United States without having restored him to the status quo ante and without due process,” Xinis wrote in an 18-page opinion. “Thus, additional relief is necessary.”

The Barack Obama appointee’s ruling follows a pair of evidentiary hearings this month where a top ICE official revealed that Abrego Garcia could be immediately removed to Mexico or South Sudan with little opportunity to challenge the deportation.

Thomas Giles, assistant director for Enforcement and Removal Operations, testified that under new Department of Homeland Security policies immigrants can be summarily deported to any country that provides “diplomatic assurances” that the person will not face persecution or torture, so long as the State Department finds them credible.

Beyond that revelation, Giles’ testimony provided little information regarding Abrego Garcia’s case as Giles stated he had no personal knowledge beyond ICE’s standard operating procedures for third-country removals. That led Xinis to indicate that a temporary restraining order was necessary.

In her opinion Wednesday, Xinis said Abrego Garcia had been lawfully living and working in Maryland when the government “pulled Abrego Garcia off the street and removed him to El Salvador” on March 12.

She pointed to an immigration judge’s decision in 2019 that, while Abrego Garcia was removable, he had a credible fear of being returned to El Salvador and thus withheld his deportation there.

At that time, ICE could have appealed the withholding order to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which it did not, and could have sought to remove him to a third country but again did not. Instead, ICE released him under an order of supervision, which granted him permission to live and work in Maryland so long as he checked in periodically at the ICE Baltimore Field Office.

Abrego Garcia remained in compliance with that order up until his wrongful deportation, Xinis said.

Xinis slammed the Justice Department both for providing few answers at a July 7 hearing — where she said getting answers from the administration was like “nailing Jello to a wall” — and called Giles ill-prepared.

She noted that her July 11 hearing was necessary to obtain any “meaningful information,” starting with the ICE detainer tied to Abrego Garcia — a document ICE uses to obtain custody over an immigrant immediately upon their release from criminal detention — which Xinis directed the government to provide.

“But the detainer raised more questions than it answered,” Xinis wrote. “The detainer stated simply that probable cause exists to remove Abrego Garcia, ‘based on … the pendency of ongoing removal proceedings.’ Yet by defendants’ own admission, there are no ongoing removal proceedings.”

While Abrego Garcia has a final order of removal subject to a final withholding order from the 2019 decision, the government has not initiated any new immigration proceedings.

“Thus, the ICE detainer seemed thin cover for defendants to take Abrego Garcia into custody in Tennessee and next transfer him to any ICE facility in the United States,” Xinis wrote. “It certainly confirmed for the court that defendants had no intention of returning Abrego Garcia to the ICE supervision order in Maryland and commencing lawful immigration proceedings from there.”

The Trump administration has repeatedly tried to paint Abrego Garcia as a dangerous criminal who the administration was right to deport, along with nearly 300 individuals labeled as members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

At a July 18 press conference in Nashville, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem labeled Abrego Garcia as a “horrible human being and a monster, and he should never be released free.”

“He has a lifetime history of trafficking individuals and of taking advantage of minors, soliciting pornography from them, nude photos of them, abusing his wife, abusing other illegals, aliens that were in this country, women that were under his care while he was trafficking them,” Noem said without evidence.

In a filing Tuesday, Abrego Garcia’s attorney’s asked Crenshaw to order the Trump administration to stop making such extrajudicial comments to ensure their client receives a fair trial.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment, but Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement on X.

“The fact this unhinged judge is trying to tell ICE they can’t arrest an MS-13 gang member, indicted by a grand jury for human trafficking, and subject to immigration arrest under federal law is lawless and insane,” McLaughlin said.

Xinis’ order will not take effect immediately, as a magistrate judge in Tennessee must still consider Abrego Garcia’s request to delay the transfer by 30 days, which the government does not oppose.

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