A federal judge in a scathing decision on Sunday said the Trump administration had no legal grounds to arrest, detain and deport a Salvadoran national from the United States to a prison in his home country, saying the decision was “wholly lawless.”
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in a 22-page decision ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Secretary Kristi Noem to return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States.
“Neither the United States nor El Salvador have told anyone why he was returned to the very country to which he cannot return, or why he is detained at CECOT,” Xinis wrote, referring to the El Salvador prison now holding Abrego Garcia.
“That silence is telling. As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador — let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere.”
“To avoid clear irreparable harm, and because equity and justice compels it, the Court grants the narrowest, daresay only, relief warranted: to order that Defendants return Abrego Garcia to the United States.”
The decision includes a number of new details about Garcia.
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