A US judge on Thursday ordered the immediate release of Kilmar Abrego, whose wrongful deportation became a flashpoint in president Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, ruling that the US government never secured a formal order for his removal from the United States.
The order from US district judge Paula Xinis in Maryland means Mr Abrego will at least temporarily be allowed to return to his Maryland home despite repeated declarations from Trump administration officials that he would never again be free in the US.
The judge’s decision to free Mr Abrego marked the latest major development in a saga that began in March when Mr Abrego was wrongfully deported to a prison in his native El Salvador and then brought back to the US in June to face human smuggling charges.
His case has become a symbol of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, with Trump officials portraying Mr Abrego as a danger to public safety and critics accusing the administration of trampling legal rights in its bid to deport millions living illegally in the United States.
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Mr Abrego (30), has been held in immigration detention since August, when immigration authorities arrested him shortly after he was released from custody in his criminal case. The order calls for him to be released immediately from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) facility in Pennsylvania.
A spokesperson for the department of homeland security, Tricia McLaughlin, called the decision “naked judicial activism”.
“This order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts,” Ms McLaughlin said in a statement.
A lawyer for Mr Abrego did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Judge Xinis, who was nominated by Democratic president Barack Obama, found Mr Abrego was entitled to release in part because an immigration judge had not issued a formal deportation order in 2019, when that judge barred his deportation to El Salvador because of a risk of gang persecution.
Judge Xinis wrote that without a formal order, the Trump administration has “no lawful basis to detain and remove” Mr Abrego and “his continued detention must end.”
The decision is the latest legal victory for Mr Abrego in his battles with the Trump administration. The US supreme court previously ordered the government to facilitate his return from El Salvador and federal judges in Tennessee rejected prosecutors’ requests to keep him in criminal custody to await a trial.
Mr Abrego’s lawyers asked judge Xinis to order him released from immigration detention, arguing that his continuing confinement was unlawfully designed to punish him rather than to prepare for a second deportation.
Lawyers for the Trump administration argued he could be legally detained for at least six months while awaiting removal. They maintained that the 2019 decision from the immigration judge implied that Mr Abrego was eligible for deportation and should be construed as a formal deportation order.
The Trump administration is still attempting to deport Mr Abrego for a second time, cycling through several African nations as potential destinations before Liberia agreed to accept Mr Abrego temporarily on a humanitarian basis.
Mr Abrego’s lawyers have said he will agree to be deported to Costa Rica, a Spanish-speaking Central American country that previously agreed to offer Mr Abrego refugee status. The Trump administration has not said why it will not agree to Costa Rica, citing only the need for continuing negotiations.
Mr Abrego, a sheet metal worker who entered the US illegally, had been living in Maryland with his wife and children until Ice arrested him and sent him to a Salvadoran mega-prison known for harsh conditions.
Mr Abrego has also pleaded not guilty to US charges accusing him of helping to transport migrants living illegally in the US. A federal judge overseeing that case has found a reasonable likelihood that the prosecution was “vindictive” and brought by the Trump administration in retaliation for Mr Abrego challenging his March deportation.
He will remain subject to release conditions ordered as part of his criminal case, which include home detention and electronic monitoring. – Reuters
