oo. 📢 BREAKING NEWS: Judge Paula Xinis orders Kilmar Abrego Garcia freed “immediately” after government admits there’s no removal order 🔥

The government’s story didn’t just “fall apart” in court — it collapsed under its own contradictions, one witness at a time.

In a blistering account of the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, Legal AF host Michael Popok says six government witnesses failed to tell the truth to U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis as the Trump administration fought to keep Abrego Garcia locked in ICE detention and pushed to remove him to a third country. According to Popok’s read of the proceedings, the government even misrepresented which countries were supposedly willing to take him, only to have those nations publicly reject the claim once it hit the press.

Then came the moment that changed everything: in court, the government acknowledged a fact it couldn’t spin away — there was no valid order of removal from an immigration judge. And that admission, Popok argues, detonated the entire detention rationale. If ICE is holding someone “to facilitate removal,” but there’s no lawful removal order, then the detention itself becomes a due-process problem — not a policy debate.

Popok reports that Judge Xinis granted Abrego Garcia’s habeas petition and ordered he be released from ICE custody immediately, directing the government to provide Abrego Garcia’s counsel with the time and location of release and to transmit the court’s decision to relevant officials — including parties tied to a separate pending criminal matter in Tennessee.

The bigger shock, though, wasn’t just the outcome. It was the court’s apparent fury at how the government handled the hearings.

Popok says Judge Xinis described Abrego Garcia’s treatment as “Kafka-esque,” and pointed to repeated failures by government witnesses to show up prepared — or to answer basic questions about the government’s own claims. One witness highlighted in the transcript is John Schultz, described as a deputy assistant director with ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, who allegedly admitted he hadn’t even reviewed correspondence central to the government’s position — including communications about Costa Rica as a potential destination.

And Costa Rica became a pressure point: Popok claims Abrego Garcia was willing to go there right away, but the government tried to shut that option down, telling the judge it was no longer viable — only for Costa Rica’s government to publicly contradict that narrative and say it was willing to accept him.

When the government didn’t get its way, Popok alleges the “fallback” countries kept shifting — with references to multiple nations and public denials that they had agreed to accept Abrego Garcia. The pattern, as described, looked less like an organized legal process and more like a scramble to keep a detention story alive.

Another witness, Jonathan Cantu (identified in the transcript as an acting assistant director in the removal division), is described as having had no prior involvement in the case and allegedly preparing for testimony in minutes. Judge Xinis, Popok says, treated that as a serious defiance of court orders — and signaled the court would consider the government’s overall conduct later, a hint at potential contempt consequences.

This latest clash sits inside a broader legal saga. Public reporting and court documents show Judge Xinis previously ordered the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States after he was deported despite a 2019 order barring removal to El Salvador, and later developments included litigation over discovery and potential sanctions. The Chesapeake Today+1

And that’s what makes this moment so combustible: it’s not just one ruling, it’s a growing record — a federal judge documenting what she views as repeated misconduct, while the administration braces for appeals and escalating scrutiny.

Because once a court starts talking about truthfulness, defiance, and contempt, it’s no longer just an immigration case.

It becomes a credibility crisis — with consequences.

👉 Drop your take in the comments: is this a turning point, or just the start of something even bigger?