‘Flagrantly Corrupt’: Judge Again Bars Abrego Garcia’s Arrest After Highly Unusual DOJ Move 

Just hours after ordering his release from immigration detention, a federal judge barred the Trump administration from re-arresting Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia Friday morning.

The new order marks the latest setback in the White House’s lawless campaign to deport Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant whose illegal removal to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador and ultimate return to the U.S. became a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown.

The Trump administration has gone to extreme — often legally suspect — lengths to justify its targeting of Abrego Garcia. But the order blocking his removal follows a move by the Department of Justice (DOJ) that is extraordinary even in the context of this unprecedented case. 

Just hours after Abrego Garcia’s release Thursday, immigration officials sought to arrest him for a third time after an immigration judge retroactively “corrected” a years-old ruling in his immigration case. Such corrections are usually intended to address minor errors, but this one altered the fundamental nature of the ruling to force Abrego Garcia’s removal from the U.S. 

Legal and immigration experts slammed the move as an unethical violation of Abrego Garcia’s due process rights and a corruption of normal immigration proceedings.

Steve Vladeck, a Georgetown Law professor, wrote on social media Friday that the maneuver was the equivalent of a judge unilaterally changing a years-old jury verdict from not guilty to guilty.

Released, but not free

Abrego Garcia left an immigration detention facility in Pennsylvania Thursday evening, just hours after U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had been unlawfully holding him in custody for months. 

Xinis, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, ruled that the Trump administration could not continue to hold Abrego Garcia and attempt to deport him because an immigration judge had never ordered his removal from the country.

Xinis’ finding marked an astonishing development in Abrego Garcia’s case, because his initial arrest in March, his wrongful removal to El Salvador and his arrest after he was brought back to the U.S. were all predicated on the existence of a removal order against him.

Trump officials sharply criticized Xinis’ order and vowed to appeal, calling it “naked judicial activism” that “lacks any valid legal basis.”

Upon Abrego Garcia’s release Thursday, ICE agents ordered him to report for an immigration check-in because an immigration judge had ordered his removal over five years ago in October 2019. 

The sudden removal order stemmed from a highly unusual late-night order issued by Phillip Taylor, a senior official in the Office of the Chief Immigration Judge, an office in the DOJ which supervises and directs the activities of immigration courts.

In the order, Taylor purported to correct an “error” in an immigration judge’s 2019 determination, which concluded that Abrego Garcia could not be deported to El Salvador because he would likely be persecuted and tortured by Salvadoran gangs that had previously threatened his family.

Taylor asserted that the judge erred in not issuing a removal order against Abrego Garcia and claimed to “correct” the mistake by labeling it as a “scrivener’s error” — which usually refers to typographical errors in court documents, such as incorrect or omitted words.

In doing so, Taylor effectively spawned an entirely new removal order from a five-year-old document that protects Abrego Garcia from removal to El Salvador.

‘Perversion of due process’

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, slammed Taylor’s decision, saying his order showed clear collaboration between Trump officials and immigration judges, who are ethically required to act impartially.

“It’s so flagrantly corrupt and a perversion of due process you almost have to laugh; then go off and file a bar complaint against the judge for violating ethics rules,” Reichlin-Melnick wrote.

Though immigration judges can exercise independent judgment, the Trump administration has attempted to reduce immigration courts to a mere rubber stamp for the president’s mass deportation agenda.

Dozens of experienced immigration judges have quit or been purged, throwing courts into chaos. In their place, the Trump administration has sought to hire “patriotic legal professionals” to serve as “deportation judges.”

Abrego Garcia reported for his immigration check-in at an ICE facility in Baltimore Friday morning and was allowed to leave without being detained. He spoke briefly to the crowd gathered outside of the ICE facility and asked that people “stand tall” against injustices being carried out by the Trump administration, according to the AP.