Illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia cannot be re-detained by ICE
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot re-detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia because the 90-day detention limit has expired and the government lacks a workable deportation plan, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
The case of the Salvadoran national has drawn attention in the broader immigration debate after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador last year. Since returning to the United States, he has been contesting efforts by Department of Homeland Security officials to deport him again, this time to several African countries.
In her order, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland wrote that the government “made one empty threat after another” to remove Abrego Garcia to African nations without any realistic prospect of success. “From this, the Court easily concludes that there is no ‘good reason to believe’ removal is likely in the reasonably foreseeable future,” she said. Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin criticized the decision in an email.
“If this matter were actually about the law or due process, Kilmar Abrego Garcia would already be deported and would never set foot in this country again; Judge Xinis will not be satisfied until he is authorized to live in the United States forever,” McLaughlin wrote.
Abrego Garcia, who has lived in Maryland for years and has an American wife and child, entered the United States without authorization as a teenager. In 2019, an immigration judge ruled he could not be deported to El Salvador because he faced threats there from a gang that had targeted his family. He was nevertheless deported to El Salvador by mistake last year.
Following public pressure and a court order, President Donald Trump’s administration brought him back to the United States in June, after securing an indictment in Tennessee charging him with human smuggling. He has pleaded not guilty. Administration officials have maintained that he cannot remain in the country and have said in court filings that they intended to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana or Liberia.
Judge Xinis noted in Tuesday’s order that the government has “purposely — and for no reason — ignored” a country that has consistently offered to accept Abrego Garcia as a refugee and to which he has agreed to go: Costa Rica.
Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, argued that immigration detention is meant only to facilitate deportation, not to punish, and that immigrants cannot be held indefinitely without a realistic removal plan.
“Since Judge Xinis ordered Mr. Abrego Garcia released in mid-December, the government has tried one trick after another to try to get him re-detained,” he said in an email Tuesday. “In her decision today, she recognized that if the government were truly trying to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the United States, they would have sent him to Costa Rica long before today.”
Sandoval-Moshenberg said the government should now make a good-faith effort to arrange Abrego Garcia’s removal to Costa Rica.
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