Does this deserve a BREAKING label? Maybe RERUN would be more appropriate.
The eight-month-long legal soap opera of Kilmar Abrego Garcia continued overnight. A federal judge sprung the illegal alien from custody, again, even though the Department of Homeland Security has had a deportation order in place since 2019. Abrego Garcia has now been deported, returned, detained again, charged with human trafficking, and … is currently back home in Maryland:
Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to his Maryland home Thursday night, after a judge ordered the immediate release of the Salvadoran national who was mistakenly deported to his home country earlier this year.
Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told CBS News on Thursday that he was officially out of Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Pennsylvania. Hours later, he was spotted arriving at his home in Maryland. …
Overnight, his lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who has been presiding over his case, to issue an emergency order blocking immigration officials from re-detaining Abrego Garcia after an immigration judge “unlawfully issued a purported removal order” Thursday night, they said in a filing.
Xinis granted that request on Friday morning, prohibiting the Trump administration from taking Abrego Garcia into custody once again. She ordered his lawyers and the Justice Department to submit additional filings.
Even this order is a rerun. Judge Xinis has twice issued orders to free Abrego Garcia during the eight-month odyssey of his status as an illegal alien. In June, she issued the original release order after DHS re-detained Abrego Garcia on his return from El Salvador, then extended his release in August pending an October hearing. Xinis rejects the idea that DHS can enforce a deportation order from 2019, she explained in her latest ruling:
First, the Court finds that Abrego Garcia is likely to succeed on the merits of any further request for relief from ICE detention considering the IJ’s December 11, 2025 “order.” If the most recent order is as Respondents claim it to be—an order of removal in effect as of October 10, 2019—then not only is Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001) squarely applicable, cf. ECF No. 110 at 25, Abrego Garcia’s 90-day “removal period” under 8 U.S.C. § 1231 expired nearly six years ago. See 8 U.S.C. § 1231 (a)(1)(A) (“when an alien is ordered removed, the Attorney General shall remove the alien from the United States within a period of 90 days.”). Respondents also have detained Abrego Garcia for the six-month presumptive period articulated in Zadvydas, when conservatively considering the time spent in ICE detention since 2019, combined with the time spent in detention in El Salvador, and in ICE custody after securing his release in the Tennessee Criminal Matter. Nor had Respondents done anything to secure Abrego Garcia’s third-country removal between 2019 and August 2025. Cf. Zavvar v. Scott, Civ. No. TDC-25-2104, 2025 WL 2592543 at *4 (D. Md. Sept. 8, 2025). Thus, for the reasons previously articulated in ECF No. 110 and in this Order, Abrego Garcia is likely to succeed on the merits of any further Zadvydas claim.
This argument goes well beyond Zadvydas, however. That 2001 ruling by the Supreme Court held that the statutes that allowed the US to detain illegal aliens after deportation orders were time-limited, but only in cases where no other countries would accept them. That is not the case with Abrego Garcia, who (a) hasn’t been detained for very long in any case and certainly not since 2019, and (b) other countries have agreed to take Abrego Garcia. Furthermore, Abrego Garcia has since been indicted by the DoJ on human-trafficking charges related to a 2022 incident in Tennessee. This is not just a matter of a deportation order that Abrego Garcia has successfully evaded until this year.
But even if it were, the Supreme Court did not intend to reward absconders and evaders in its Zadvydas ruling. The point of that ruling was that indefinite detention in the case where no deportation was possible violated the Constitution. The dissent in that case argued against even that much of a concession to those who enter the US illegally, especially to the six-month window that Xinis cites from the Zadvydas ruling. In Xinis’ interpretation, the successful evasion of a deportation order for six months would present illegal aliens with a Get Out Of Jail Free card – even when the US can find a country willing to accept the deportation.
In other words, this recess for Abrego Garcia won’t last long. An appellate court will likely reverse this nonsensical idea, but if not, the Supreme Court certainly will. In the meantime … enjoy As The Abrego Garcia Turns.
Editor’s Note: Unelected federal judges are hijacking President Trump’s agenda and insulting the will of the people.
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