Judges Block Sudden Deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Demand Due Process
So, here's what's going on with Kilmar Abrego Garcia — and it’s a story that’s stirring up a lot of debate around immigration, law enforcement, and due process.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, has been caught in a legal whirlwind. A judge in Tennessee recently ordered his release from federal criminal custody. He had been charged with human smuggling but pleaded not guilty. The government had tried to keep him locked up while awaiting trial, but the judge ruled that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove he posed a danger or was likely to flee.
Now, normally, someone released from criminal custody like that might just walk out — but this case is anything but normal. What made things even more tense was the real possibility that U.S. immigration authorities, specifically ICE, would swoop in immediately after his release and deport him — and not just to El Salvador, but possibly to a third country he has no ties to. That’s where things started to get legally messy.
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A second judge, Paula Xinis in Maryland, stepped in with an emergency order. She said ICE couldn’t just grab Abrego Garcia the moment he’s released. In fact, she ruled that if immigration authorities want to deport him, they have to give him — and his legal team — at least 72 hours' notice. That’s to ensure he gets a chance to defend himself and argue his case, something he was denied before when he was deported to El Salvador earlier this year — in what the Trump administration later admitted was an “administrative error.”
Judge Xinis also said he should be returned to Maryland, where he lives and had previously been under ICE supervision since 2019. Under that earlier agreement, he had the right to live and work there legally, as long as he regularly checked in with immigration officials — which, by all accounts, he was doing.
The rulings from both judges were seen as a major check on what many called overreach by the Trump administration. His legal team and immigration advocates say the government had been acting without respect for court orders or due process, and this back-to-back judicial intervention sends a clear message.
Still, Abrego Garcia hasn’t walked free just yet. His lawyers actually asked the Tennessee court to delay his release for 30 days, just to make sure all the legal protections are in place before ICE tries anything. For now, he remains in custody of the U.S. Marshals, but thanks to these rulings, the roadmap ahead gives him a chance to fight removal lawfully — and not be secretly whisked away again.
It's a case that highlights how intense and tangled the intersection of immigration enforcement and federal court authority can get — and for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, it’s literally been a fight to stay in the country and have his voice heard in court.
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