Judge extends prohibition on Kilmar Abrego Garca's re-detainment [View all]

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Judge Paula Xinis, who ordered that Abrego be set free earlier this month, reprimanded a Trump administration lawyer over its handling of the case.

Link to tweet

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/12/22/kilmar-abrego-garcia-set-free/

A federal judge on Monday kept in place a temporary order prohibiting the Trump administration from re-detaining Kilmar Abrego García, saying she wants officials to tell her their intentions while she considers how to rule next because she doesn’t trust that he won’t again be deported illegally.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said she was concerned the administration might try to take Abrego back into custody “in the middle of the night” before she could take steps to ensure due process in his case, and she dressed down a Justice Department lawyer for repeated misrepresentations by the U.S. government.

“Once again, I’m making a finding that these representations, which are misrepresentations, are in bad faith,” she told Justice Department lawyer Ernesto H. Molina Jr., saying she was “beyond impatient” with government lawyers putting false information in their legal briefs.

Xinis said the bar against the longtime Maryland resident’s rearrest will remain in place until his lawyers and the government have each filed further legal briefs. Her rebuke marked another tense moment in a long-running legal showdown between the White House and the federal courts.

The trump DOJ had repeatedly lied to this judge. Lying to a federal judge is a bad idea