Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Monday filed a new lawsuit against U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem, seeking to block his Wednesday deportation to Uganda. It was immediately assigned to District Court Judge Paula Xinis, who a Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney recently described as an “activist” judge with “little regard” for presidential powers.
The lawsuit was first announced on Monday by his immigration attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, of the firm Murray Osorio, outside the ICE Baltimore Field Office, where Abrego Garcia delivered remarks before reentering federal custody under ICE.
Though filed under seal, the docket number associated with Abrego Garcia’s latest lawsuit indicates the habeas corpus petition is related to Abrego Garcia’s ongoing lawsuit against Noem over his March deportation, which may explain how it was assigned to Xinis. There are nine other judges who serve in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
Habeas corpus petitions challenge the legality of a detention. Latin for “produce the body,” such a petition requires government attorneys to make their case for why an individual should remain incarcerated.
Such a petition does not normally block deportation, but in Maryland there is a standing order which automatically delays deportations for 48 hours under habeas corpus petitions. However, Xinis’ July ruling already prohibited ICE from deporting Abrego Garcia until Wednesday afternoon at the earliest, which appears to coincide with the 48-hour requirement in Maryland.
Unless the judge issues a stay, Abrego Garcia could be deported Wednesday despite the petition.
Xinis previously ruled that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) must give Abrego Garcia and his attorneys a 72-hour notice of future deportation proceedings, and blocked the agency from immediately arresting him following release from DOJ custody.
In apparent compliance with this order, the DOJ on Friday released Abrego Garcia, and at 4 p.m. that day his attorneys were notified of ICE’s intention to deport him to Uganda.
A letter from DOJ civil attorney August Flentje, who was one of the initial attorneys representing DHS after Abrego Garcia sued the federal government, previously described Xinis as an “activist,” when Flentje was asked to explain his view of the events which led to a fired DOJ attorney conceding that Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration in March. Abrego Garcia is subject to a final deportation order from 2019 which contains a “withholding of removal” provision that only references Guatemala, not El Salvador.
“First, we knew we had a terrible draw in the Abrego Garcia case, Judge Xinis,” wrote Flentje. He called the judge, “an activist who would give little regard to the President’s foreign policy authority,” and said the government attorneys considered it “guaranteed” that Xinis would “rule against the Trump Administration.”
Because of the judge’s bias, he wrote, “Our strategy therefore needed to focus on narrowing an adverse order or buying a small amount of time to give our client maximum policy flexibility or a better chance to develop the factual record.”
This latest lawsuit comes after Abrego Garcia rejected a plea deal that would have seen him enter a guilty plea in his federal human smuggling case out of Tennessee. Originally scheduled for January 2026, Abrego Garcia’s case does not currently appear on the docket for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.
Abrego Garcia’s charges stem from his November 2022 stop by Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP), which was first reported by The Tennessee Star. A spokesman for THP later told The Star that Abrego Garcia was released at the instruction of the “Biden-era FBI,” and a DHS document showed the troopers suspected human trafficking.
The citizen of El Salvador entered a not guilty plea following his June return to Tennessee.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
