The Trump administration must release Kilmar Abrego Garcia on his criminal charges in Tennessee, and immigration authorities must allow him to return to Maryland on supervision without taking him into custody, two judges separately ruled Wednesday.
The rulings allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to restart Abrego Garcia’s immigration proceedings in Baltimore and try to detain him once he is back, but ICE must also provide 72 hours’ notice before removing him to a country where he has no ties.
It marks a victory for Abrego Garcia’s lawyers in their quest to limit the administration from again swiftly deporting the man, who was mistakenly removed to El Salvador in March and spent weeks in a notorious megaprison. He was later returned to Tennessee to face two human smuggling felonies.
Abrego Garcia’s release from a Tennessee jail on those charges won’t be immediate. Later Wednesday, a magistrate judge agreed to Abrego Garcia’s request to delay his release by 30 days to first figure out next steps. The administration did not oppose the delay and has long insisted Abrego Garcia will never be free while on American soil.
The two earlier rulings landed nearly simultaneously Wednesday afternoon.
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, who oversees the criminal proceedings in Tennessee, said the government could not justify detaining Abrego Garcia before trying him on charges he smuggled migrants across the country on dozens of trips. The trial is set to begin Jan. 27.
“The Government has failed to show on appeal that this case is one of the ‘carefully limited exception[s]’ where detention pending trial is justified, entitling Abrego to his liberty in the meantime,” Crenshaw wrote.
If Abrego Garcia is released, the Justice Department had long said he would be immediately transferred to immigration custody. He could then be deported in a matter of hours, but no final decision would be made until the transfer occurs, an ICE official testified.
U.S. District Paula Xinis, who has been overseeing Abrego Garcia’s months-long civil lawsuit in Maryland, agreed to limit what ICE can do upon his release. The administration contended Xinis had no authority to intervene.
“Defendants have done little to assure the Court that absent intervention, Abrego Garcia’s due process rights will be protected,” Xinis wrote.
Both Crenshaw and Xinis were appointed by former President Obama.
After his return to Maryland on supervision, Abrego Garcia will remain protected from deportation to El Salvador under a 2019 immigration court ruling. But Xinis’s order now also prevents his deportation to any other country without at least 72 hours’ notice, as requested by his lawyers.
The judge acknowledged ICE may be able to lift the 2019 ruling or deport him to another country after providing the notice. But Xinis said Abrego Garcia was entitled to be returned to the status quo he was living in before his March arrest that thrust him into the national spotlight.
“So long as such actions are taken within the bounds of the Constitution and applicable statutes, this Court will have nothing further to say,” she wrote.
Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), who represents the area where Abrego Garcia lived after entering the country illegally, called the decisions a step in the right direction.
“You never know with the Trump administration, but it should be unlikely that they would try and deport somebody again in violation of a court order,” Ivey told The Hill.
Rebecca Beitsch contributed.
Updated at 4:21 p.m. EDT
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