Federal Judge Orders Release of Detained Salvadoran Migrant

A federal judge in Maryland ordered the immediate release on Thursday of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who has been held in immigration detention since August, ruling that the government lacks a lawful basis to continue his custody without a formal order of removal.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued the decision from the bench in Greenbelt, Maryland, stating that Abrego Garcia's detention had become arbitrary after nearly four months without progress toward deportation. "Since Abrego Garcia's wrongful detention in El Salvador, he has been redetained, again without lawful authority," Xinis wrote in her 31-page opinion. The ruling requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release him from the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, though he will remain subject to pretrial conditions from a separate criminal case, including home detention, electronic monitoring, and travel restrictions.

Abrego Garcia, 30, entered the United States illegally in 2012 and had lived in Maryland with his wife and children, working as a sheet metal worker. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him withholding of removal, barring deportation to El Salvador due to a...