Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant who Immigration and Customs Enforcement was forced to release from detention, said Friday he won’t bow down to the Trump administration.
“It doesn’t matter what this government says. Ultimately, I still believe this is a country of laws, a country of justice, and all of this injustice is going to come to an end,” he said in Spanish before a check-in with ICE in Baltimore.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement freed Abrego Garcia Thursday afternoon following an order from a judge that the Trump administration plans to appeal. The undocumented man, who has lived in Maryland for years, was mistakenly deported to a notorious Salvadoran prison in March and then returned to the U.S. to face criminal charges.
Abrego Garcia appeared nervous as he addressed the crowd gathered outside the Baltimore ICE office before his appointment.
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“To those who are detained, to their families, I ask you to have faith,” he said.
Abrego Garcia was able to reunite with his family in Maryland in August after his initial removal to El Salvador, which the government said was a mistake because of a past court order that he could not be deported there.
ICE arrested him days after that first release based on criminal charges filed by the Trump administration for alleged human smuggling. He has denied those claims.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ruled Thursday that ICE’s detention of Abrego Garcia without a removal order was unlawful. She also issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting ICE from detaining him again.
The Obama-appointed judge criticized the federal government for repeatedly defying her orders to produce information about what steps ICE had taken to deport Abrego Garcia.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said he would accept his removal to Costa Rica. Instead, the administration threatened to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, and Liberia throughout the trial.
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