Kilmar Ábrego García, the Salvadoran migrant who was returned to the United States after an irregular deportation to El Salvador, was released this Thursday from an immigration center in the state of Pennsylvania by order of a judge, his lawyer informed EFE.
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Lawyer Sean Hecker confirmed the release hours after Paula Xinis, a federal judge in the state of Maryland, ordered that Ábrego be released “immediately” from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) center given that his detention occurred “without legal authority.”
The Salvadoran, who lives in Maryland, was deported to El Salvador in March and imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), the maximum security prison built by the Government of Nayib Bukele, despite the fact that a US judge had prohibited his expulsion.
After an arduous legal battle with the Donald Trump Administration, which accuses him of having participated in human trafficking and being a gang member, Ábrego was returned to the United States in June to face federal charges.
Until now, Ábrego García was in the Moshannon Valley processing center, in Pennsylvania, and the US Government was looking for a way to deport him to an African country since it cannot send him back to El Salvador.
The judge considered that “he has remained detained by ICE to carry out his expulsion to a third country without there being a legal expulsion order.”
“The conduct of the defendants (the US Government) in recent months refutes that their detention had the fundamental objective of carrying out the expulsion, which further reinforces the idea that Abrego García should not remain detained,” Xinis wrote.
Although he was released from ICE custody, the Salvadoran remains subject to provisional release imposed by a Tennessee judge, pending a trial for human trafficking.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt assured this Thursday that the Trump Government plans to appeal Xinis’ decision.
“The White House and the Government oppose the activism of a judge who, in reality, acts as a judicial activist, something that, unfortunately, we have seen in many cases throughout the country,” the spokesperson explained.
Ábrego, 30, is a Salvadoran citizen residing in Maryland who entered the United States irregularly when he was a teenager. He has an American wife and children.
In 2019, an immigration judge determined that he could not be deported to El Salvador due to the danger he faced there from a gang.
However, the Trump Administration also deported him to the Central American country, and he later had to be returned to the United States by court order.
His case has become an emblem for immigrant advocacy organizations when it comes to denouncing Trump’s anti-immigration policies.
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