Kilmar Ábrego García – who has been thrust into the middle of an acrimonious deportation saga by the second Trump administration – has been detained after reporting to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents in Baltimore on Monday, but a judge later ruled that he cannot be deported for now.
His detainment comes just three days after his release from criminal custody in Tennessee.
“The only reason he was taken into detention was to punish him,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney representing Ábrego, told a crowd of supporters outside a Baltimore Ice field office on Monday. “To punish him for exercising his constitutional rights.”
The attorney also said his client filed a new lawsuit on Monday morning challenging his potential deportation to Uganda and his current confinement. Hours later, US district judge Paula Xinis issued a temporary halt to Ábrego’s possible deportation.
Xinis, who was appointed by former president Obama, told justice department lawyers that the government is “absolutely forbidden” from deporting Ábrego until she holds an evidentiary hearing scheduled for Friday.
Xinis further instructed that Ábrego must remain at his detention center in Virginia. She then asked deputy assistant attorney general Drew Ensign whether her order was sufficient for the justice department to follow, which he agreed it was.
“Your clients are absolutely forbidden at this juncture to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the continental United States,” Xinis told Ensign.
The judge also raised concerns about accusations that the justice department attempted to pressure Ábrego by threatening deportation to Uganda if he did not plead guilty to human trafficking.
Ábrego faced threats of being deported to Uganda after recently declining an offer to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for remaining in jail and pleading guilty to human smuggling charges, according to a Saturday court filing.
“The fact that they are holding Costa Rica as a carrot and using Uganda as a stick to try to coerce him to plead guilty for a crime is such clear evidence that they are weaponizing the immigration system in a matter that is completely unconstitutional,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
The lawsuit Ábrego filed early on Monday asks for an order “that he is not allowed to be removed from the United States unless and until he has had full due process”, said Sandoval-Moshenberg.
“The main issue, aside from the actual conditions in that country is – is that country actually going to let him stay there?” the attorney said. “They can offer to send him to Madrid, Spain, and unless Madrid, Spain, is going to let him remain in that country, essentially what it is – is a very inconvenient layover on the way to El Salvador, which is the one country that it has already determined that he cannot be sent to.”
The Costa Rican government has agreed to offer Ábrego refugee status if he is sent there, court filings from Saturday show. A judge in 2019 ruled that Ábrego cannot be deported to El Salvador.
Before walking into his appointment at the Baltimore Ice field office, Ábrego addressed a crowd of faith leaders, activists, and his family and legal team organized by the immigrant rights non-profit Casa de Maryland.
“My name is Kilmar Ábrego García, and I want you to remember this – remember that I am free and I was able to be reunited with my family,” he said through a translator, NBC News reported. “This was a miracle … I want to thank each and every one of you who marched, lift your voices, never stop praying and continue to fight in my name.”
After Ábrego entered the building, faith leaders and activists rallied to demand Ábrego’s freedom, chanting “Sí, se puede” (roughly “yes, we can”) and “we are Kilmar” as well as singing the hymn We Shall Not Be Moved with an activist choir.
“Laws have to be rooted in love, because love does not harm us,” a senior priest at Maryland’s St Matthew Episcopal church identified as Padre Vidal said through a translator.
Related: Kilmar Ábrego García released from criminal custody after court order
Ábrego entered the US without permission in about 2011 as a teenager after fleeing gang violence. He was subsequently afforded a federal protection order against deportation to El Salvador.
The 30-year-old sheet metal apprentice was initially deported by federal immigration officials in March. Though Donald Trump’s administration admitted that Ábrego’s deportation was an “administrative error”, officials have repeatedly accused him of being affiliated with the MS-13 gang, a claim Ábrego and his family vehemently deny.
During his detention at El Salvador’s so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), Ábrego was physically and psychologically tortured, according to court documents filed by his lawyers in July.
Following Ábrego’s wrongful deportation, the Trump administration faced widespread pressure to return him to the US, including from a supreme court order that directed federal officials to “facilitate” his return.
In June, the Trump administration returned Ábrego from El Salvador, only to charge him with crimes related to human smuggling, which his lawyers have rejected as “preposterous”. His criminal trial is expected to begin in January.
Ábrego’s detention comes amid growing concern about the Trump administration’s accelerating mass deportations campaign. Protesters across the US are rallying against the federal government’s crackdown on immigrants in Washington DC, the nation’s capital, while activists in Maryland and nationwide are pushing Democratic officials to end contracts with Avelo Airlines, which is the only passenger airline that conducts deportation flights for Ice.
Shortly after Ábrego’s detention on Monday, the US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said on social media that Ice had arrested him and was “processing him for deportation”.
“President Trump is not going to allow this illegal alien, who is an MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator to terrorize American citizens any longer,” she wrote.
Glenn Ivey, the Democratic congressman representing the Maryland district where Ábrego and his family live, said his constituent’s detention was a “total abuse of power” by the federal government and a tactic to save them from “being embarrassed” due to a lack of evidence to find him guilty in court.
Ábrego’s mistreatment has become a flashpoint political issue within the district and beyond, Ivey said.
“I think if they [the administration] are waiting for people to forget about it or get tired of it, they’ve gotten a big surprise on that front,” Ivey said.
Shrai Popat contributed reporting
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