A federal judge ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from immigration detention, finding ICE held him without legal authority and relied on inaccurate records. Judge Paula Xinis said officials misrepresented third-country options, including Costa Rica’s willingness to receive him, and could not produce a final removal order. DHS condemned the ruling and plans an appeal as Abrego Garcia pursues asylum and fights a separate human smuggling case.
A federal judge’s order freeing Kilmar Abrego Garcia from immigration detention did more than return one man to his Maryland home. It pulled back the curtain on a removal process the court said was built on nonexistent paperwork, shifting destination plans, and statements that “affirmatively misled the tribunal.” For an immigrant whose wrongful deportation to a notorious prison in El Salvador had already made him a flashpoint of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, the ruling turned his case into a live test of how far federal immigration authorities can stretch detention and removal powers.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release Abrego Garcia immediately, writing that officials had detained him again after his court-ordered return to the United States “without any legal basis.” She also found that, despite the government’s litigation posture, there was no final removal order on file for him — a threshold document DHS had invoked to argue she lacked jurisdiction to intervene. That missing cornerstone in the paper trail undercut the government’s central procedural claim and opened the door to the court’s more sweeping review of how ICE was handling his case.
The government’s response was unusually combative. The Department of Homeland Security sharply criticized the decision and vowed to appeal, labeling Xinis’ ruling “naked judicial activism” and insisting it “lacks any valid legal basis.” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said DHS would fight the order “tooth and nail in the courts,” framing the clash as a separation-of-powers issue rather than a data and documentation failure inside the removal system. The dispute now pits a district court’s reading of the record against an agency that is openly challenging the judge’s authority to question how it executes final orders.
Xinis’ opinion, however, focused less on abstract power and more on the specific data trail in Abrego Garcia’s file. An immigration judge ruled in 2019 that, as a Salvadoran national facing danger from a gang that targeted his family, he could not lawfully be deported to El Salvador. Nevertheless, he was “mistakenly sent there” in March, prompting a separate court to order his return to the United States. Those two rulings should have formed fixed reference points in his records: one blocking removal to El Salvador, another compelling his return. Instead, the government’s subsequent filings, as described by Xinis, painted an evolving and at times inaccurate picture of what options were actually available.
Because he cannot be removed to El Salvador, ICE began seeking to deport him to “a series of African countries.” The judge noted a “successive list of four African countries” that officials proposed as alternative destinations, apparently without firm commitments from those governments to accept him. Each new country on that list represented another data point offered to the court as evidence that removal was realistically foreseeable. Yet Xinis concluded that, taken together, those assertions did not substantively demonstrate viable removal options, raising questions about how ICE tracks and verifies third-country agreements before presenting them as fact in federal court.
The most pointed discrepancy involved Costa Rica. According to Xinis, officials had affirmed to the court that Costa Rica withdrew an offer to receive Abrego Garcia. That assertion later proved untrue. “Costa Rica had never wavered in its commitment to receive Abrego Garcia, just as Abrego Garcia never wavered in his commitment to resettle there,” she wrote. The gap between what ICE told the court and what Costa Rica had actually communicated was central to her conclusion that federal authorities “did not just stonewall” but “affirmatively misled the tribunal.” It also highlighted how a single, uncorrected misstatement about a third country’s position can reshape detention decisions and prolong a person’s confinement.
Alongside these destination disputes was a more basic structural problem: the absence of a documented final removal order that the government itself claimed restricted the court’s role. Xinis rejected DHS’ argument that she lacked jurisdiction precisely because “she found no final order had been filed.” That finding suggests either a breakdown in how orders are recorded and produced in litigation, or an attempt to invoke an order that did not yet exist in the form the government described. Either scenario signals a deeper concern about the reliability of the paperwork on which prolonged detention is justified.
For Abrego Garcia, the cumulative effect has been years of legal and physical limbo. He has lived in Maryland for years and has an American wife and child, having first immigrated to the United States illegally as a teenager. After his wrongful deportation to El Salvador and subsequent return on a court’s order, he was held at Moshannon Valley Processing Center, about 115 miles (185 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh, until Xinis’ latest ruling forced his release. His attorney, Simon Sandoval‑Moshenberg, said his client “has endured more than anyone should ever have to,” and emphasized that the order reaffirms that the government “can’t detain someone indefinitely without legal authority.”
The litigation around him now runs on multiple tracks that intersect with the same timeline of government decisions. His federal civil suit alleges that the Trump administration is illegally using the removal process to punish him for the public embarrassment caused by his wrongful deportation. In the immigration system, he is asking a separate court to reopen his case so he can seek asylum in the United States. Meanwhile, in Tennessee, he faces criminal charges for human smuggling, to which he has pleaded not guilty, and has moved to dismiss the case as vindictive.
A Tennessee judge has already ordered an evidentiary hearing after finding some evidence the charges “may be vindictive” and citing Trump‑era statements that “raise cause for concern,” suggesting the Justice Department may have charged him because he prevailed in his wrongful deportation fight. Sandoval‑Moshenberg cautioned that despite Thursday’s release, the government “still has plenty of tools in their toolbox, plenty of tricks up their sleeve,” and said he fully expects officials to again try to deport his client. DHS has already signaled that it will press its appeal.
As those challenges move forward, Xinis’ findings about missing orders, moving target countries, and inaccurate representations to the court are likely to draw intensified scrutiny from appellate judges, immigration courts, and advocates. To them, Abrego Garcia’s case is less a one-off error than a warning sign about how detention and removal data are created, reported, and contested across the federal system.
Max Grant serves as the Senior Correspondent for Data and Financial Forensics at Just Right News, where he brings a meticulous, investigative eye to the complex world of numbers. In an era where media narratives often overshadow objective reality, Max operates on a simple but firm principle: while rhetoric can be manipulated, the ledger never lies. As the architect behind the acclaimed feature series “Numbers That Talk,” he has carved out a vital niche in conservative journalism, translating dense financial data into clear, actionable insights for the American public.
Max’s journey to the forefront of financial reporting began in Buffalo, New York. Growing up in the Queen City, he was raised with the grit and grounded perspective typical of the Rust Belt. Buffalo is a place that understands the value of a dollar and the consequences of economic shifts on the working class. This upbringing instilled in Max a deep-seated respect for fiscal responsibility and a healthy skepticism toward bureaucratic overreach. He carries the spirit of his hometown into every investigation, viewing his work not just as reporting, but as a form of public service dedicated to protecting the interests of taxpayers and everyday citizens.
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