US judge blocks ICE from re-detaining Abrego Garcia, amid Trump-era immigration clash
The order comes less than a day after Kilmar Abrego Garcia, previously wrongfully deported to El Salvador, was released from immigration detention
A federal judge ordered on Friday that US immigration officials could not detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia, hours after his release from immigration detention.
Abrego Garcia was appearing on Friday morning for a scheduled appointment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office, some 14 hours after he was released from detention on a judge’s orders. His lawyers asked the judge to block authorities from detaining him again.
Officials cannot re-detain him until the court conducts a hearing on the motion for the temporary restraining order, US District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland said. She wrote that Abrego Garcia was likely to succeed on the merits of any further request for relief from ICE detention.
“For the public to have any faith in the orderly administration of justice, the Court’s narrowly crafted remedy cannot be so quickly and easily upended without further briefing and consideration,” she wrote.
Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown earlier this year when he was wrongly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador. He was last taken into custody in August during a similar check-in.
Abrego Garcia on Friday stopped at a news conference outside the building, escorted by a group of supporters chanting “We are all Kilmar!”