Judge Rips Trump Lawyers for Lying About Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s Case

A federal judge slammed Justice Department lawyers Thursday for blatantly lying about their efforts to remove Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man wrongfully deported to El Salvador last spring—and she ordered the government to release him.

In a 31-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis granted Abrego Garcia’s request to be released from ICE custody. In her ruling, she torched the prosecutors’ efforts to deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia, after they claimed they could not deport him to the country of his choice, Costa Rica.

“This time, when the Court sought information about Liberia and Costa Rica so to fairly assess the validity of Abrego Garcia’s claims, Respondents did not just stonewall. They affirmatively misled the tribunal,” Xinis wrote.

“They announced that Liberia is the only viable removal option because Costa Rica ‘does not wish to receive him,’ … and that Costa Rica will no longer ‘accept the transfer’ of him,” she wrote. “But Costa Rica had never wavered in its commitment to receive Abrego Garcia, just as Abrego Garcia never wavered in his commitment to resettle there.”

Costa Rican officials had previously put in writing that they had no intention to remove Abrego Garcia back to El Salvador once he was in their custody—while Liberia had made no such assurances. Xinis wrote that the government’s continued lies made clear that Abrego Garcia’s lengthy detention was not for the basic purpose of a timely removal to the third country.

Xinis also found that there was never any order for Abrego Garcia’s removal in the first place. “Indeed, Respondents twice sponsored the testimony of ICE officials whose job it is to effectuate removal orders, and who candidly admitted to having never seen one for Abrego Garcia,” she wrote.

Instead, the government argued that the court should take an October 10 “withholding decision” as evidence that an original order existed—but Xinis didn’t buy it. “The October 10 withholding decision is unambiguously not an order of removal,” she wrote.

Continued detention without a removal order violates Abrego Garcia’s rights under the Immigration and Nationality Act, as well as due process.