The once-detained Salvadoran national appeared outside an ICE field office in Baltimore, Maryland, where he urged supporters to stand strong and keep fighting alongside him. Shortly after, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis prohibited ICE from again detaining him until a hearing about a temporary restraining order.
“For the public to have any faith in the orderly administration of justice, the Court’s narrowly crafted remedy cannot be so quickly and easily upended without further briefing and consideration,” Xinis wrote Friday.
“I stand here today with my head held high, and I will continue to fight and stand firm against all of the injustices this government has done upon me,” he said outside the courthouse ahead of a scheduled appointment. “Regardless of this administration, I believe this is a country of laws, and I believe that this injustice will come to an end.”
“I stand before you a free man, and I want you to remember me this way, with my head held up high,” he said earlier in the speech. “I come here today with so much hope, and I thank God who has been with me since the start with my family.”
Abrego Garcia was joined by faith leaders at his first public appearance since his release.
On Thursday, Xinis ruled that the Trump administration had no legal authority to continue holding him in custody while pushing for his removal to a third country. Abrego Garcia was previously deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador. He was later returned to the United States.
FEDERAL JUDGE ORDERS RELEASE OF KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA FROM ICE CUSTODY
She concluded on Thursday that the federal government’s multiple third-country designations of Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, and Liberia as destinations for Abrego Garcia’s removal only underscored that “no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future exists.”
Critics accused the Trump administration of wrongfully deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, which the government admitted was the result of an “administrative error.” The Salvadoran native lived illegally in Maryland with his wife and children for years.
