Garcia to remain free through Christmas as she barred Immigration and Customs Enforcement from re-detaining the Salvadoran native.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland extended a temporary restraining order to keep federal officials from deporting Abrego Garcia, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled he was deported and imprisoned in March without legal authority to El Salvador.
“This is an extremely irregular and extraordinary situation,” Xinnis told attorneys Monday, as she pressed the government on whether it would detain Abrego Garcia if there were no restraining order.
“Show your work, that’s all,” Xinis said. “Give it to me and we don’t have to speculate.”
Abrego Garcia was released from ICE detention on Dec. 11, following efforts to deport him to an African nation where he has no connection.
“Because Abrego Garcia has been held in ICE detention to effectuate third-country removal absent a lawful removal order, his requested relief is proper,” according to Xinis.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security called Xinis’ rulings “naked judicial activism by an Obama-appointed judge.”
Abrego Garcia, who illegally entered the United States nearly 15 years ago, has accused the White House of vindictive prosecution. The administration has called him an MS-13 gang member, which he denies.
Abrego Garcia had been living in Maryland with his wife and children before being deported to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison in March. He was returned to the United States in June and is awaiting trial on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty.
On Monday, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said he is prepared to go to Costa Rica, which the judge said the government refuses to consider.
The “persistent refusal to acknowledge Costa Rica as a viable removal option, their threats to send Abrego to African countries that never agreed to take him and their misrepresentation to the court that Liberia is now the only country available to Abrego, all reflect that whatever purpose was behind his detention, it was not for the ‘basic purpose’ of timely third-country removal,” Xinis wrote.
