Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been released from jail after a judge ruled the Trump administration had detained him “without lawful authority”, his lawyer says.
A US court ruled that the government did not have a removal order for Mr Abrego Garcia, which blocks it from deporting him “at this juncture”.
Mr Abrego Garcia, who is married to an American citizen and has been living in Maryland for years, illegally came to the US from El Salvador when he was a teenager. He was mistakenly deported back to El Salvador in March and brought back to the US to face criminal charges.
But Thursday’s ruling is unlikely to be the final word as the justice department is likely to appeal.
Mr Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, on Thursday that his client was officially out of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) custody.
The order by US District Judge Paula Xinis means Mr Abrego Garcia can at least temporarily return to his family in Maryland.
“We remain hopeful that this marks a turning point for Mr Abrego Garcia, who has endured more than anyone should ever have to,” Mr Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman criticised the ruling, calling it “naked judicial activism by an Obama-appointed judge”.
“This order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts,” Tricia McLaughlin wrote on X.
The case became a focal point in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration after Mr Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March, despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation.
The administration has alleged Mr Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 criminal organisation, which he has denied.
In 2019, he was arrested with three other men in Maryland and detained by federal immigration authorities.
At the time, the judge granted him protection from deportation on the grounds that he could face persecution by a gang in his home country.
But the Trump administration deported him to El Salvador in March, prompting an order from the US Supreme Court in April requiring the government to bring him back.
He was returned to the US in June, where he was arrested and taken to Tennessee to face human smuggling charges. He has pleaded not guilty.
Mr Abrego Garcia was then released from jail in Tennessee, but taken into custody again after being summoned to a mandatory immigration meeting in Baltimore.
Judge Xinis wrote on Thursday that he cannot be removed from the country.
The judge had initially temporarily barred the government from removing him to a third country while she heard his challenge to the detention.
In her order, Judge Xinis said the government had said it was considering removing him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and later Liberia.
Costa Rica offered to take Mr Abrego Garcia, the judge said, but the government did not accept its offer.
In her 31-page order, the judge wrote that immigration detention cannot be used for punishment or go on indefinitely.
She said the first three African countries had never been “viable options”, while Costa Rica “had never wavered in its commitment to receive Abrego Garcia, just as Abrego Garcia never wavered in his commitment to resettle there”.
“Whatever purpose was behind his detention, it was not for the ‘basic purpose’ of timely third-country removal,” she wrote.
