Supporters of Kilmar Abrego García rally outside the ICE field office in Baltimore on Monday, Aug. 25. | Stephanie Scarbrough / AP
NASHVILLE—A federal judge this week stopped the deportation of embattled working-class father and immigrant Kilmar Abrego García in the wake of his release from a Tennessee jail last Friday. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis issued a new order declaring the Trump administration is “absolutely forbidden to remove Abrego García from the continental United States.”
Xinis ordered Trump regime officials to keep Abrego García in the U.S. while she considers the new legal challenges in opposition to the Trump plan to deport him posthaste to Uganda.
Reporting for a routine check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Baltimore Monday morning, Abrego García was within 60 seconds of entering the building arrested, handcuffed, and “disappeared’ within the bowels of the edifice.
Abrego García’s lead counsel, Simon Sandoval-Moshenbrg, said, “We asked the ICE officer what the reason for his detention was; the ICE officer didn’t answer.” Sandoval-Moshenberg continued, saying officers would not even disclose the detention center to which his client was being taken.
“We asked the ICE officer for a copy of any paperwork that’s being served on him today, the ICE office wouldn’t commit to even giving us that paperwork,” added Sandoval-Moshenberg. The refusals to provide such information were a violation of legal protocol.
In the meantime, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem verified Monday that ICE detained Abrego García and was processing him for deportation to Uganda. Noem bizarrely boasted that Abrego García would not “terrorize American citizens any longer.”
Abrego García was due to be released into the custody of his brother in Maryland, and his trial in Tennessee on human smuggling charges is still scheduled for January 2026. The deportation to Uganda is all the more preposterous as it would preclude his effective communication with counsel in preparation for the trial. And many question whether Trump would even bring him back for trial?
It is speculated that the Trump government does not want a trial to take place, as it would be an embarrassment in light of the weakness of the prosecution’s case against Abrego García. The human smuggling charges are seen by many as political fabrication, simply a test case to terrorize immigrant populations in the U.S.
In the latest breaking news in this case on Wednesday, Judge Xinis scheduled an Oct. 6 evidentiary hearing for the lawsuit filed by Abrego García’s attorneys on Monday challenging his deportation to Uganda. Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign stated that while the government disagrees with the judge’s order not to remove him pending the lawsuit, the government will comply.
This is a victory of sorts as the case makes its way through the judicial system.
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