Lisa Lambertand
Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu
Kilmar Abrego Garcia: ‘I stand before you as a free man’
A US federal judge has issued a new order blocking immigration officials from re-detaining Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a day after ordering his release.
Attorneys for Mr Abrego Garcia, an immigrant who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador and brought back to the US, asked the judge to prevent him from being taken back into detention. They said he feared he would be held at a routine check-in on Friday morning.
Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland wrote Mr Abrego Garcia’s re-detention would cause “irreparable harm” in her swiftly issued order.
Speaking before his scheduled check-in, Mr Abrego Garcia described himself as a “free man” who will “continue to fight” what he said were injustices.
An immigration judge on Thursday evening had issued an order of removal prompting Mr Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, in return, to ask Judge Xinis to issue a temporary restraining order blocking his detention.
“If, as Abrego Garcia suspects, Respondents will take him into custody this morning, then his liberty will be restricted once again,” Judge Xinis wrote granting that request. “It is beyond dispute that unlawful detention visits irreparable harm.”
Mr Abrego Garcia, who is married to an American citizen and has been living in Maryland for years, illegally came to the US from El Salvador when he was a teenager. He was mistakenly deported back to El Salvador in March and brought back to the US to face criminal charges.
Judge Xinis ruled on Thursday that the government did not have a removal order for Mr Abrego Garcia, which blocks it from deporting him “at this juncture”. He was released from immigration detention and ordered to check in at an immigration office Friday morning.
But Thursday’s ruling may not be the final word as the justice department is expected to appeal her order while also pursuing Mr Abrego for separate criminal charges of human trafficking in Tennessee.
Outside a Baltimore immigration office on Friday, Mr Abrego spoke to reporters and supporters.
“I stand before you a free man and I want you to remember me this way, with my head held up high,” he said through a translator. “I will continue to fight and stand firm against all of the injustices this government has done upon me.”
He added that he believes “this is a country of laws and I believe that this injustice will come to an end”.
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Late on Thursday, Mr Abrego Garcia was officially out of the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), his attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
“We remain hopeful that this marks a turning point for Mr Abrego Garcia, who has endured more than anyone should ever have to,” Mr Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
Mr Abrego Garcia returned to his Maryland home, but then was told report to an ICE field office in Baltimore at 08:00 ET (13:00 GMT) on Friday.
In her Thursday order, Judge Xinis stated Mr Abrego Garcia could not be removed from the country.
“Because respondents have no statutory authority to remove Abrego Garcia to a third country absent a removal order, his removal cannot be considered reasonably foreseeable, imminent, or consistent with due process,” Judge Xinis wrote.
A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman criticised the ruling, calling it “naked judicial activism by an Obama-appointed judge”, referring to former President Barack Obama.
“This order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts,” Tricia McLaughlin wrote on X.
The case became a focal point in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration after Mr Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March, despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation.
The administration has alleged Mr Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 criminal organisation, which he has denied.
Watch: White House says DHS will fight release of Abrego Garcia in court
In 2019, he was arrested with three other men in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities.
At the time, the judge granted him protection from deportation on the grounds that he could face persecution by a gang in his home country.
But the Trump administration deported him to El Salvador in March, prompting an order from the US Supreme Court in April requiring the government to bring him back.
He was returned to the US in June, where he was arrested and taken to Tennessee to face human smuggling charges. He has pleaded not guilty.
Mr Abrego Garcia was then released from jail in Tennessee, but taken into custody again after being summoned to a mandatory immigration meeting in Baltimore.
At that point, Judge Xinis had temporarily barred the government from removing him to a third country while she heard his challenge to the detention.
In her Thursday order, Judge Xinis said the government had said it was considering removing him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and later Liberia.
Costa Rica offered to take Mr Abrego Garcia, the judge said, but the government did not accept its offer.
In the 31-page order, the judge wrote that immigration detention could not be used for punishment or go on indefinitely.
She said the first three African countries had never been “viable options”, while Costa Rica “had never wavered in its commitment to receive Abrego Garcia, just as Abrego Garcia never wavered in his commitment to resettle there”.
“Whatever purpose was behind his detention, it was not for the ‘basic purpose’ of timely third-country removal,” she wrote.
