A federal judge ordered for Kilmar Ábrego García to be released from immigration detention on Thursday.

It’s the latest twist in a legal battle between President Donald Trump’s administration and Ábrego García that has gained national attention. The Salvadoran national and Beltsville resident has been battling for his freedom since he was erroneously deported to El Salvador in March.

Months after his deportation, Ábrego García was brought back to the United States to face felony charges in Tennessee. A judge released him from detention in Tennessee, but immigration officers took him into custody shortly after in Baltimore. He was held at the Farmville Detention Center in Virginia and later moved to a detention center in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania.

His lawyers have been fighting for his release as the government has threatened to deport him to numerous African countries, including Eswatini, Uganda, Ghana and Liberia. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis last heard arguments from the federal government and Ábrego García’s lawyers over whether or not to allow his release on Nov. 20.

In a 31-page memorandum opinion filed on Thursday, Xinis said that Ábrego García was detained without legal authority because the government didn’t issue an official order of removal. An order of removal is a legal document that triggers the deportation process.

In the November hearing, Xinis repeatedly pushed the government’s lawyers to produce and file a removal order, which no one could provide at the time. Since the hearing, Xinis said in the opinion, the government still had not provided a removal order to her, which meant Ábrego García was being held unlawfully.

Xinis ordered that immigration officials have until 5 p.m. on Thursday to give an update on Ábrego García’s release.

In an emailed statement, Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the ruling “naked judicial activism by an Obama appointed judge.”

“This order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts,” she wrote.

The statement did not address a question from The Banner about whether ICE plans to comply with the order and release Ábrego García on Thursday.

Several countries that the federal government identified as places where Ábrego García would be deported later said they would not accept him, including Uganda, Eswatini and Ghana. Liberia, a West African country with a record of human rights violations, eventually agreed to take Ábrego García on a temporary basis.

Costa Rican officials in August offered Ábrego García refugee status and promised not to return him to El Salvador, where he was held in the notoriously brutal CECOT prison after his March deportation.

Ábrego García’s attorneys repeatedly expressed an openness to his removal to Costa Rica at two different evidentiary hearings. U.S. government officials testified that the small, mostly peaceful Central American nation had rescinded its August offer and would no longer accept him.

In November, Costa Rican Security Minister Mario Zamora Cordero disputed the assertion that the offer had been rescinded, according to media reports, indicating the nation’s offer to provide him legal residency was still on the table.

Xinis said in her opinion that the government’s “persistent refusal to acknowledge Costa Rica as a viable removal option, their threats to send Ábrego García to African countries that never agreed to take him, and their misrepresentation to the Court that Liberia is now the only country available to Abrego Garcia, all reflect that whatever purpose was behind his detention, it was not for the ‘basic purpose’ of timely third-country removal.”

“They affirmatively misled the tribunal,” Xinis wrote.

Ábrego García is also in the midst of a criminal court case in Tennessee, where he faces felony smuggling charges.

This story has been updated.