MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is now free from immigration custody. He is the man illegally deported by the Trump administration in March and eventually returned.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Abrego Garcia was released on Thursday. A judge ruled the government had not been able to produce a lawful order to remove him from the country. We start with the details of this case.
MARTIN: NPR's Ximena Bustillo has been tracking this, and she is with us now. Good morning, Ximena.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: Tell us about how the judge who presided over this case explained her decision.
BUSTILLO: Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland said that the government's arguments to keep him detained were, quote, "troubling" and that he had no current pending removal order to justify keeping him detained. Remember, this was a man who'd been living in the U.S. for more than 10 years. In 2019, an immigration judge had ruled that Abrego Garcia could not be removed to El Salvador, where he had argued that he could be tortured or persecuted. Then he was arrested and detained by immigration officers in Maryland earlier this year. But the Trump administration deported him to El Salvador, sending him to a notorious prison there. After months of public outcry, the administration brought Abrego Garcia back and immediately charged him with human smuggling in a separate case. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges. Now, government lawyers have also tried and failed to convince Xinis that they are trying to deport him to a third country, like Uganda or Eswatini, but they haven't done so.
MARTIN: So what's next in his case?
BUSTILLO: So the White House has said that it will appeal. And lawyers for Abrego Garcia called the order to release him an extraordinary victory for their client and for due process.
MARTIN: You know, Ximena, this seems like a lot of back-and-forth over one person. So how has the government justified its actions?
BUSTILLO: A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security called the order, quote, "naked judicial activism." Abrego Garcia has become one of the symbols of the Trump administration's fight with the judicial branch of government. Democrats say that it's an example of the administration going too far. Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, happened to be testifying yesterday at a congressional hearing on worldwide threats. But Democrats took the opportunity to press her on domestic immigration enforcement and the following of court orders. Representative Shri Thanedar asked if she would comply with court orders, and here's how Noem responded.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KRISTI NOEM: The Department of Homeland Security and this administration complies with all federal court orders. We always have, and we always...
SHRI THANEDAR: Not true.
NOEM: And we will continue to appeal.
BUSTILLO: The administration has consistently clashed with judges this year, especially on issues related to immigration.
MARTIN: And, Ximena, I understand that lawmakers pressed Noem on other issues as well yesterday. What were they?
BUSTILLO: Democrats raised numerous examples about how they believe the administration has overstepped its authority. Present in the audience were family members of people who had been deported or put in detention, invited there by Democrats as examples of the impact of immigration enforcement. Noem at one point turned to a man present at the hearing, and she said she would look into the case of his wife, an Irish woman who is detained. Democrats argue that she is in the U.S. legally, and her only criminal record is writing a $25 bad check 10 years ago. The administration has said it wants to remove anyone with a criminal record.
Noem and Republicans doubled down on the administration's policies. Noem said she believed that the biggest threat to national security are the immigrants who entered the U.S. under former President Biden. Her department is reopening the cases of refugees who were admitted under Biden and is calling for a review of asylum applications during that time, too. So we're seeing enforcement focus on those here illegally and some legal categories, too.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Ximena Bustillo. Ximena, thank you.
BUSTILLO: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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