Federal Judge Orders Release of Salvadoran Detainee, He Returns Home

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis on December 11 ordered the immediate release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, concluding in a written finding that federal authorities did not have legal authority to continue detaining him. Xinis wrote that the government had no valid removal order for Abrego Garcia and that his removal could not be considered reasonably foreseeable, imminent, or consistent with due process, noting he had been re detained again without lawful authority after a prior wrongful removal.

Multiple outlets reported that Abrego Garcia was freed from a Pennsylvania immigration detention facility identified by NBC and others as the Moshannon Valley Processing Center and was en route to or reunited with family in Maryland shortly after the order. USA TODAY reported his release at 4:45 p.m. on December 11. PBS and other outlets said the judge gave prosecutors until 5 p.m. Eastern that day to formally respond to the release order, and the Department of Homeland Security signaled it would continue to contest the ruling.

Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran national who has lived in Maryland for years. Reporting variously describes him as having an American wife and child and as a father of three who works as a union sheet metal worker, an account provided by the immigrant advocacy group CASA. He entered the United States illegally as a teenager, and an immigration judge in 2019 granted him withholding of removal after finding he faced credible threats from a gang targeting his family. That order blocks deportation to El Salvador.

In recent months the case has threaded through criminal and immigration systems. In March Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador and was returned to the United States in June. After his return he was arrested on federal human smuggling charges in Tennessee. He was at one point released into his brother’s custody in Maryland pending trial and later re detained by immigration authorities and held in Pennsylvania. CASA says he had been detained at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center since September 2025 and that he is awaiting trial on retaliatory charges scheduled for January 2026. An October ruling by U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Tennessee found a realistic likelihood that Abrego Garcia’s prosecution stems from government retaliation related to his successful challenge of his unlawful deportation.

Reactions split along predictable lines. Abrego Garcia’s attorney Simon Sandoval Moshenberg called the release “an extraordinary victory for our client and for due process,” and CASA’s Lydia Walther Rodriguez described the order as “a moment of joy and relief,” saying Abrego finally gets to return home to his family. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin posted that the ruling was “naked judicial activism by an Obama appointed judge,” saying the order “lacks any valid legal basis,” and the department signaled it would seek further review.

Legally the decision underscores mounting judicial scrutiny of ICE detention when removal is not imminent or when prior removals are found unlawful. Practically it poses immediate logistical questions for prosecutors in Tennessee and for ICE custody practices nationwide, as courts continue to weigh procedural limits on detention against executive immigration enforcement priorities. For the community where Abrego Garcia has lived and worked for years the order restores a worker and a parent to family life, while setting the stage for further litigation over the intersecting criminal and immigration cases.