US District Court Judge Paula Xinis finds Salvadoran national Abrego Garcia being held 'without lawful authority'
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered Abrego Garcia released from the ICE Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Philipsburg, Pa., ruling that the Trump administration had not obtained the final notice of removal order needed to remove him to a third country.
"Since Abrego Garcia’s return from wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been re-detained, again without lawful authority," Xinis said in an order Thursday. "For this reason, the Court will GRANT Abrego Garcia’s Petition for immediate release from ICE custody."
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The order comes after Xinis last month used an evidentiary hearing to press the government on whether it had the final order needed to deport Abrego Garcia from the U.S. to a third country, including the list of African nations previously identified by Trump officials.
Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign previously suggested that the immigration judge who ruled in 2019 that Abrego Garcia could not be removed back to his home country of El Salvador had "meant," or implied a final order of removal — a notion Xinis dismissed in her ruling Thursday.
"No such order of removal exists for Abrego Garcia," she said.
The Justice Department is almost certain to appeal her order to a higher court, as Ensign indicated to her in previous hearings.
Xinis had said last month that without final notice of removal, Abrego Garcia would be "at a minimum" entitled to certain relief under Supreme Court precedent in Zadvydas v. Davis, which bars the government from indefinitely detaining migrants after removal issues have been ordered.
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Xinis had also pressed Trump officials on why they could not deport Abrego Garcia to the third county of Costa Rica, whose government had granted the necessary assurances that they would not detain him or refoul him back to his home country of El Salvador.
Trump officials previously told her in court that Costa Rica was "off the table," though they did not provide evidence.
Subsequent court filings appear to show that Costa Rica had not reneged on its agreement to accept Abrego Garcia into their country, casting renewed doubt on that claim.
The order from Xinis comes after lawyers for the Trump administration repeatedly asked Xinis to dissolve an emergency order she handed down in August, which required Abrego Garcia to remain in U.S. immigration custody, and within 200 miles of her court.
Xinis's order also ostensibly allows Abrego Garcia to remain in the U.S. with his brother, pending trial in a separate criminal case in Nashville, Tennessee.
It also would allow him to participate in a two-day evidentiary hearing ordered by the judge overseeing that case, aimed at weighing whether the government's case against Abrego Garcia's should be dismissed on the grounds of "vindictive" and selective prosecution.
That hearing was postponed earlier this week until mid-January.
The Trump administration previously tried and failed to remove Abrego Garcia to the African countries of Liberia, Eswatini, Uganda and briefly, Ghana.
Xinis noted last month that the government cannot take any of those steps without the final notice of removal order.
"You’ve raised all these arguments, and they all depend on me having a withholding of removal order," Xinis said last month. "You can't ‘fake it ’til you make it.'"
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/federal-judge-orders-kilmar-abrego-garcia-released-from-ice-custody
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