Ábrego plans return to Maryland as DHS pledges to appeal judge’s decision, calling ruling ‘naked judicial activism’

Kilmar Ábrego García has been freed from an immigration detention facility in Pennsylvania after a federal judge in Maryland ordered his release on Thursday.

Ábrego was released shortly before 5pm ET, his attorney told the Associated Press. He plans to return to Maryland, where he has lived for many years with his US citizen wife and child after first entering the country illegally as a teenager.

Critics from Hungary, El Salvador and Turkey offer advice to the US about what they’ve learned about authoritarians

Donald Trump makes no secret of his admiration for strongmen like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán or El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. Last month, he praised Orbán’s hardline stance on immigration and urged European leaders to show more “respect” for the president; earlier this year his administration struck a deal with Bukele to send more than 200 detained migrants to a notorious, maximum-security prison in El Salvador.

Many international organizations, experts and historians have sounded the alarm about the United States heading in a similar direction as these authoritarian regimes.