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ABREGO GARCIA LEAVES ICE CUSTODY, AS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION VOWS TO
FIGHT RELEASE  
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Ariana Figueroa
December 11, 2025
Maryland Matters
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_ Abrego Garcia was imprisoned in a brutal prison in El Salvador and
returned to the United States to face criminal charges in Tennessee.
After he was ordered released from U.S. marshals custody by a federal
judge, ICE detained him again. _

Kilmar Abrego Garcia speaks to a crowd holding a prayer vigil and
rally on his behalf outside the ICE building in Baltimore on Aug. 25,
2025. Lydia Walther Rodriguez with CASA interprets for him. , (Photo
by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters).

 

The wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia was no longer in U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody Thursday night, after a
federal judge ordered his release earlier in the day, according to his
attorneys and an immigrant rights group that has advocated his case.

CASA, the immigrant rights group that has supported Abrego Garcia and
his family since he was erroneously deported to a brutal Salvadoran
prison, told States Newsroom he was released from the Moshannon Valley
Processing Center in Pennsylvania before a 5 p.m. deadline set by the
judge. He has been held there since September.

However, it remained unclear Thursday night if the Department of
Homeland Security will follow the judicial order, and the White House
press secretary said the Justice Department would swiftly appeal the
decision.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to States
Newsroom the “order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue
to fight this tooth and nail in the courts.”

She did not respond to a follow-up question if ICE would follow the
order from
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U.S. District Court of Maryland Judge Paula Xinis to release Abrego
Garcia, the Salvadoran immigrant and longtime Maryland resident who
cast a spotlight on the Trump administration’s aggressive
immigration crackdown after he was wrongly deported.

Abrego Garcia was imprisoned in a brutal prison in El Salvador and
returned to the United States to face criminal charges in Tennessee.
After he was ordered released from U.S. marshals custody by a federal
judge, ICE detained him again at an appointment at the Baltimore,
Maryland, ICE field office.

‘Without lawful authority’

Xinis, in a ruling highly critical of the administration’s actions
in the case, found that since Abrego Garcia was brought back to the
United States, he was detained “again without lawful authority,”
because the Trump administration has not made an effort to remove him
to a third country, due to his deportation protections from his home
country of El Salvador.

The order comes after Abrego Garcia challenged his ICE detention in a
habeas corpus petition. Xinis was mulling a Supreme Court precedent
that deemed immigrants cannot be held longer than six months in
detention if the federal government is not actively making efforts to
remove them.

The government’s “conduct over the past months belie that his
detention has been for the basic purpose of effectuating removal,
lending further support that Abrego Garcia should be held no
longer,” Xinis wrote in her opinion.
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Costa Rica has agreed to accept Abrego Garcia as a refugee, but in
court, Justice Department lawyers did not give Xinis a clear
explanation of why the Trump administration would not remove him to
Costa Rica. Instead, the Trump administration has tried to deport
Abrego Garcia to several countries in Africa.

Prolonged detention found

In her opinion, Xinis said that Abrego Garcia’s release is required
under the Supreme Court’s precedent, referred to as the Zadvydas v.
Davis case, because his nearly four-month detention at an ICE facility
in Pennsylvania is prolonged.

“Respondents’ persistent refusal to acknowledge Costa Rica as a
viable removal option, their threats to send Abrego Garcia to African
countries that never agreed to take him, and their misrepresentation
to the Court that Liberia is now the only country available to Abrego
Garcia, all reflect that whatever purpose was behind his detention, it
was not for the ‘basic purpose’ of timely third-country
removal,” Xinis said.

She also noted witness testimony from several ICE officials
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who were unable to provide any information on efforts to remove Abrego
Garcia to a third country where he would not face torture, persecution
or deportation to El Salvador.

“They simply refused to prepare and produce a witness with knowledge
to testify in any meaningful way,” she said of the Justice
Department.

While the Trump administration has floated removing Abrego Garcia to
Eswatini, Ghana, Liberia and Uganda, the Justice Department is moving
forward with criminal charges lodged against Abrego Garcia that stem
from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee.

The judge in that Nashville case is trying to determine if the human
smuggling of immigrants charges against Abrego Garcia – to which he
has pleaded not guilty – are vindictive.

Missing order of removal

Another issue Xinis pointed out was the Justice Department’s
inability to produce a final order of removal for Abrego Garica.

“No such order of removal exists for Abrego Garcia,” she said.
“When Abrego Garcia was first wrongly expelled to El Salvador, the
Court struggled to understand the legal authority for even seizing him
in the first place.”

She also cited the ICE officials’ testimony, which did answer
whether a removal order existed.

“Respondents twice sponsored the testimony of ICE officials whose
job it is to effectuate removal orders, and who candidly admitted to
having never seen one for Abrego Garcia,” she said. “Respondents
have never produced an order of removal despite Abrego Garcia hinging
much of his jurisdictional and legal arguments on its
non-existence.”

Attorneys for Abrego Garcia have argued if there is no order of
removal, there is no basis for his ICE detention.

Abrego Garcia is not challenging his deportation, and has agreed to be
removed to Costa Rica, but has remained in ICE detention since August.

 

 

_Ariana Figueroa covers the nation's capital for States Newsroom, the
nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. Her
areas of coverage include politics and policy, lobbying, elections and
campaign finance._

 

_Maryland Matters is a trusted nonprofit and nonpartisan news site. We
are not the arm of a profit-seeking corporation. Nor do we have a
paywall — we want to keep our work open to as many people as
possible. So we rely on the generosity of individuals and foundations
to fund our work. Maryland Matters is part of __States Newsroom_
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nonprofit news organization._

* Kilmar Abrego Garcia
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* ICE
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* deportations
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* El Salvador
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* Costa Rica
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* Justice Department
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