AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to the extraordinary case of Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland dad who first made headlines in March when he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador, where he was held in the notorious CECOT mega-prison. In June, he was returned to the United States, but his ordeal continued as the Trump administration threatened to deport him, first to Uganda, then to Eswatini and Liberia, three African countries he has no ties to.

Well, last week, a federal judge ordered him released from an ICE jail in Pennsylvania. Ábrego García spoke to supporters after he reunited with his family.

KILMAR ÁBREGO GARCÍA: [translated] Yesterday, after my release, the first thing I did, and the only thing I did, was enjoy time with my family. These are times we’re living in, Christmas time, a time when harmony, love and peace are paramount. Being with family is love, and that is what I did. I was with my family, who mean everything to me. …

I stand here before you in the fight. The fight will continue. I will remain standing. I will not bow my head to anyone. I will always stand against all the injustices this government has committed. … No matter what this government says, in the end, I still believe this is a country of laws, a country of justice, and we will put an end to all this injustice.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Kilmar Ábrego García speaking last week.

We’re joined now by one of his attorneys, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg.

Welcome to Democracy Now! Explain what is happening right now.

SIMON SANDOVAL-MOSHENBERG: So, on Thursday morning, the federal district judge in Maryland, Judge Xinis, ordered that he be released, and she gave two reasons for that. The first reason is what you could say, fairly, is a technical reason, that back when he was in immigration proceedings in 2019, the judge did not properly enter an order of deportation. Really, essentially, there was a particular form that was supposed to be filled out that the judge did not fill out, which is an order of removal form. And so, therefore, he can’t be held pursuant to an order of removal that doesn’t exist. That’s the kind of hypertechnical, you know, “get him off on a technicality” reason that everyone’s focused on.

But I’m really trying to focus more on the second reason that she gave, which is that even assuming that there is an order of deportation — or, rather, even if there were an order of deportation, the only permissible purpose under the Constitution for immigration detention is in order to remove somebody. Well, the government’s course of dealing since August shows that they’ve been detaining him not in order to remove him from the country, but, rather, in order to keep him locked up. Right? They’re locking him up in order to lock him up, not even to actually deport him to Africa, but just to keep him locked up. But as you’ll recall, there was a criminal proceeding. They tried to get the criminal judge to keep him locked up. The criminal judge wouldn’t do it. He ordered him released on his own recognizance. And so, therefore, they’re trying to use the immigration detention to accomplish what they couldn’t accomplish in the criminal detention system. And the judge in Maryland held that that’s impermissible, it’s a violation of due process, and ordered him released on that basis, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you have them trying to send him to an African country, and it’s not clear — like Eswatini, like Liberia, like Uganda. It’s something that he has no connection to. It’s not clear if the U.S. has agreements with these countries to imprison him there. But the place he’s closer to, here in this hemisphere, Costa Rica, they said they refused to take him. But then Costa Rica said, “We never refused to take him. He can come here.” What’s the deal, Simon?

SIMON SANDOVAL-MOSHENBERG: Yeah, back in August, Costa Rica offered Mr. Ábrego García refugee status in that country. Right? So, that’s a permanent status. It means that he can live there permanently, without fear of eventually getting kicked out to El Salvador. You know, he can work there. He can establish a life there — right? — if he so chooses.

Now, of course, we understand that this is not justice, right? Justice would be that he gets to stay in Maryland, where he’s, you know, got a U.S. citizen wife, U.S.-born child, built a life, you know, union worker, etc. That would be justice.

That said, you know, he recognizes, given the considerable power of the U.S. government to make his life miserable, that going to Costa Rica is essentially an acceptable outcome compared to being sent to some African country, where, A, he doesn’t know what his conditions are going to be, but, perhaps even more importantly, B, he’s got no guarantee that those countries are actually going to let him stay there and not redeport him right back to El Salvador, where he was already tortured in prison earlier this year. So, that’s why right now, essentially, the fight is around his ability to go to Costa Rica — right? — and take advantage of this offer of refugee status that they’ve given.

So, what the judge in Maryland held, what she found, is that if they were really trying to just deport him — right? I mean, ICE can detain someone in order to deport them. That’s true. But if that’s what they were actually trying to do, he’d have been in Costa Rica months ago. And so, clearly, what they’re trying to do is something else entirely.

AMY GOODMAN: And what is that?

SIMON SANDOVAL-MOSHENBERG: Well, punish him, right? Punish him for being so bold and, you know, to speak up for his rights to not be deported in violation of a court order. I mean, it’s really — you know, it’s about him, definitely. I don’t want to take the focus off of him, because he is a man, you know, with a wife and a child. But it’s also about the government using him, more or less at random — right? — to stand for the principle that they get to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want — and, specifically, courts can’t stop them. Right? So this is really a battle between the executive and the judiciary, and he’s just being torn asunder, you know, by these two sort of competing forces.

AMY GOODMAN: I know you have to go. So, what happens now with Paula Xinis’s order, the judge?

SIMON SANDOVAL-MOSHENBERG: Well, we have a hearing on Monday afternoon in federal district court in Greenbelt, Maryland, at which it’s going to be determined whether ICE can rearrest him. Right? Essentially, you know, what are the — they tried to rearrest him on Monday morning — excuse me, Friday morning, the very day after he was released. We rushed into court overnight and got a temporary restraining order preventing his immediate rearrest. He would have been — if the government had its way, he would have been out for literally one night before being rearrested the following morning. But now Judge Xinis is going to have to decide, essentially, what are the — what are the terms and conditions going forward, right? Under what conditions can he be rearrested by ICE? Does she have power to order them to deport him to Costa Rica? There’s a lot that’s still on the table.

AMY GOODMAN: And the effect on Kilmar, his wife, the child?

SIMON SANDOVAL-MOSHENBERG: I mean, it’s been an utter roller coaster, right? You know, Thursday morning, he woke up in the detention center thinking it was just going to be another day. Late morning, they’re telling him, “We’re releasing you this afternoon.” As he’s walking out the door of the detention center, he gets a notice that he’s going to be rearrested the following morning, that he has to go to an ICE office, which obviously is for rearrest. You know, that night, we file a temporary restraining order. We receive the temporary restraining order from the judge literally as he’s walking up the steps into the ICE building, right? So, he gets in the car that morning not even knowing if he’s going to come back home that afternoon. By the time he hits the door of the building, he knows that he’s got an order from a judge at least protecting him in the short term. But that order is a very temporary order. It only lasts through Monday, right? And on Monday, this coming Monday, the judge is going to decide what happens next. So, it’s been, you know, one earthquake after another for him.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, lead counsel for Kilmar Ábrego García. We’ll continue to follow this story.

Coming up, we’ll stick with the issue of immigration, looking at the Trump administration’s plan to ramp up efforts to strip the citizenship of hundreds of naturalized Americans. We’ll also talk about birthright citizenship. And we’ll look at what the Justice Department — what the Department of Homeland Security said yesterday in response to the alleged shooter in the Brown University case and the murder of the MIT professor, saying that they are halting the diversity visa program, which is a green card program. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah,” performed by Rising Stars Fife and Drum Band at the Brooklyn Folk Festival in November.