Calling his months-long detention "troubling," Maryland Federal Judge Paula Xinis on Thursday granted Kilmar Abrego Garcia's request to be released from ICE custody.

The native of El Salvador and resident of Maryland has become a symbol of the Trump administration's policy of mass deportations after he was wrongfully sent to a prison in El Salvador in the spring due to an "administrative error ," contrary to a judge's order. The government later returned him to the U.S. but immediately charged him in Tennessee in a separate criminal case with smuggling undocumented immigrants. He denies those charges.

Judge Xinis today wrote that the government has never produced evidence of a removal order for him.

"No such order of removal exists for Abrego Garcia," Xinis wrote. "When Abrego G

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