A federal judge in Maryland has ordered the Trump administration to take immediate action to bring back a man who was wrongfully deported to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, intensifying ongoing legal tensions between the judiciary and the White House.
“This was an illegal act,” U.S. Federal District Judge Paula Xinis told lawyers from the Justice Department during a hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland. The case involves Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident with legal status and a valid work permit, who was detained and sent to El Salvador last month—even though he was granted protection from deportation by an immigration judge back in 2019.
Judge Xinis instructed the federal government to ensure that Abrego Garcia is returned to the United States no later than 11:59 p.m. on Monday, April 7, emphasizing that his continued presence in El Salvador amounts to serious and irreversible harm.
“From the moment he was seized, it was unconstitutional,” Judge Xinis said from the bench. “If there isn’t a document, a warrant, a statement of probable cause, then there is no basis to have seized him in the first place. That’s how I’m looking at it,” the judge said.
The Department of Justice acknowledged that an administrative blunder led to Abrego Garcia’s removal. Still, government attorneys claimed in legal filings that he is affiliated with MS-13 and argued that the judge no longer has the power to order his return since he is not currently on U.S. soil.
Attorneys for Abrego Garcia strongly disputed that reasoning, insisting that Homeland Security must act without delay to bring him back from El Salvador.
“They’re coming before this court and saying we’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of options,” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego Garcia’s lawyers.
Erez Reuveni, representing the Justice Department, urged the judge to give the Trump administration more time to work out the issue internally.
“I would ask the court to give us the defendants one more chance to do this” without an order from the court, Reuveni asked at the end of the hearing. Judge Xinis rejected that request.
When pressed by the judge about why Abrego Garcia had been apprehended last month, Reuveni admitted he could not provide an answer.
At the time of his arrest, Abrego Garcia had been living in Maryland with his wife and children, all of whom are American citizens.
“In a blink of an eye, our three children lost their father, and I lost the love of my life, his mother lost his son, his siblings lost their brother,” said Jennifer Vasquez, Abrego Garcia’s wife, during a press conference held earlier Friday in Maryland.
“Our entire family is broken” by ICE’s “error,” she said, calling her husband a devoted father and exceptional spouse who “pushes everyone around to find their happiness, even in tough times.”
Despite the family’s description of Abrego Garcia as a loving and peaceful man, the White House painted a very different picture.
“You would think this individual was Father of the Year, living in Maryland, living a peaceful life, when that couldn’t be further from the truth,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier this week.
However, Abrego Garcia’s legal team insists that the government has not presented any credible proof linking him to MS-13. They argue the accusation stems solely from a 2019 tip by a confidential informant who claimed he was in the gang while living in New York—a state where Garcia has never resided—and the fact that he wore a Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie. His lawyers maintain that he has no criminal history in the U.S. or anywhere else.
During Friday’s proceedings, Judge Xinis expressed doubt over the government’s allegations.
“That’s just chatter in my view. I haven’t been given any evidence,” Xinis said. “In a court of law when someone is accused of membership in such a violent and predatory organization, it comes in the form of an indictment, a complaint, a criminal proceeding that then has robust process, so we can assess facts.”
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers explained that he had been taken into custody by police in Prince George’s County, Maryland in 2019, while waiting for day labor work outside a Home Depot. They said he was never again interrogated about MS-13 or formally accused of gang involvement after that incident.
An immigration judge later granted Abrego Garcia a legal protection known as “withholding of removal,” concluding that he was more likely than not to face danger if sent back to El Salvador. Both his lawyers and government attorneys agree that this status should have prevented his deportation.
Nevertheless, on March 15th, Abrego Garcia was placed on a plane with hundreds of others alleged to be gang members and flown to El Salvador, where he remains confined in a high-security facility.
Officials in the Trump administration maintain that the deported individuals were connected to MS-13 or Tren de Aragua, two gangs classified by the U.S. as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Yet, many of the deportees reportedly have no criminal backgrounds, and advocates say they were expelled without the opportunity to challenge the accusations.
Attorneys and family members for a growing number of those deported insist that they were mistakenly targeted, largely based on their tattoos rather than any evidence of criminal behavior.
At Friday’s rally in Maryland, Vasquez voiced support for others affected by similar actions under the Trump administration.
“The only thing we have at the end of the day is our faith and our strength to fight back,” Vasquez said. “We must fight for our husbands, our children, our neighbors, our loved ones — fight for Kilmar and fight for all the immigrant families lighting a candle for the loved ones that disappeared.”
{Matzav.com}