Kilmar Abrego Garcia can spend Christmas with his family after spending much of the year in custody. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, in Maryland, issued an order late on Dec. 22 requiring government attorneys to file a brief by Dec. 26 on whether they plan to take him back into immigration custody, and under what legal authority they would do so. His attorneys have until Dec. 30 to respond. A temporary restraining order that bars Immigration and Customs Enforcement from detaining him remains in place in the meantime. “This decision means Kilmar gets to sleep in his own bed in the next coming days, without the fear of being separated from his family and community in the middle of the night,” Lydia Walther-Rodriguez, an organizer with the community group CASA, said in an email. The Salvadoran citizen's case has become a lightning rod for both sides of the immigration debate as he fights to remain in the U.S. after a mistaken deportation to his home country, where he was imprisoned. Members of President Donald Trump's administration have accused him of being a member of the MS-13 gang, but he has vehemently denied the accusations and has no criminal record. Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported back to his home country, after concluding he faced danger there from a gang that targeted his family. In March, he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador anyway. Facing mounting public pressure and a court order, Trump’s Republican administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, but only after issuing an arrest warrant on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges and asked the judge to dismiss them. Abrego Garcia was held in a Tennessee jail for two months before he was freed to await trial in with his family in Maryland. However, he was only free for a weekend before he was detained by ICE. Trump administration officials have said he cannot stay in the U.S. Over the past few months, government attorneys have threatened to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and, most recently, Liberia. However, officials have made no effort to deport him to the one country he has agreed to go to — Costa Rica. Xinis has even accused the government of misleading her by falsely claiming that Costa Rica was unwilling to take him. On Dec. 11, Xinis ordered him released from ICE custody, finding that the government had no viable plan to deport him anywhere and could not keep him in detention indefinitely.

The Senate’s top Democrat urged his colleagues on Dec. 22 to take legal action over the Justice Department’s incremental and heavily redacted release of records pertaining to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced a resolution that, if passed, would direct the Senate to file or join lawsuits aimed at forcing the Justice Department to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law enacted last month that required disclosure of records by last Friday. “Instead of transparency, the Trump administration released a tiny fraction of the files and blacked out massive portions of what little they provided,” Schumer, D-N.Y. said in a statement. “This is a blatant cover-up.” In lieu of Republican support, Schumer’s resolution is largely symbolic. The senate is off until Jan. 5, more than two weeks after the deadline. Even then, it’ll likely face an uphill battle for passage. But it allows Democrats to continue a pressure campaign for disclosure that Republicans had hoped to put behind them. The Justice Department said it plans to release records on a rolling basis by the end of the year. It blamed the delay on the time-consuming process of obscuring victims’ names and other identifying information. So far, the department hasn’t given any notice when new records arrive. That approach angered some accusers and members of Congress who fought to pass the transparency act. Records that were released, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs, court records and other documents, were either already public or heavily blacked out, and many lacked necessary context. There were few revelations in the tens of thousands of pages of records that have been released so far. Some of the most eagerly awaited records, such as FBI victim interviews and internal memos shedding light on charging decisions, weren’t there. Nor were there any mentions of some powerful figures who’ve been in Epstein’s orbit, like Britain’s former Prince Andrew. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday defended the Justice Department’s decision to release just a fraction of the files by the deadline as necessary to protect survivors of sexual abuse by the disgraced financier. Blanche pledged that the Trump administration would meet its obligation required by law. But he stressed that the department was obligated to act with caution as it goes about making public thousands of documents that can include sensitive information. Blanche, the Justice Department’s second-in-command, also defended its decision to remove several files related to the case from its public webpage, including a photograph showing Trump, less than a day after they were posted. The missing files, which were available Friday but no longer accessible by Saturday, included images of paintings depicting nude women, and one showed a series of photographs along a credenza and in drawers. In that image, inside a drawer among other photos, was a photograph of Trump, alongside Epstein, Melania Trump and Epstein’s longtime associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. Blanche said the documents were removed because they also showed victims of Epstein. Blanche said the Trump photo and the other documents will be reposted once redactions are made to protect survivors. “We are not redacting information around President Trump, around any other individual involved with Mr. Epstein, and that narrative, which is not based on fact at all, is completely false,” Blanche told NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Blanche said Trump, a Republican, has labeled the Epstein matter “a hoax” because “there’s this narrative out there that the Department of Justice is hiding and protecting information about him, which is completely false.” “The Epstein files existed for years and years and years and you did not hear a peep out of a single Democrat for the past four years and yet ... lo and behold, all of a sudden, out of the blue, Senator Schumer suddenly cares about the Epstein files,” Blanche said. “That’s the hoax.”

Defenders of a Wisconsin judge found guilty of felony obstruction for helping a Mexican immigrant evade federal officers raised alarms on Dec. 19 about judicial independence and said they hope the conviction will be overturned on appeal. But the Trump administration hailed the conviction, which is punishable by up to five years in prison, as a sign that no one is above the law. A jury found Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan guilty on Dec. 18 after a four-day trial and six hours of deliberation. The jury found her not guilty of a misdemeanor concealment charge. No sentencing date had been set as of Friday morning. The verdict was a victory for President Donald Trump, whose administration filed the charges and touted Dugan's arrest, posting photos of her being led away in handcuffs. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted Friday that “NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.” “No one can obstruct law enforcement as they carry out their basic duties,” she said in a social media post. “This Department of Justice will not waver as our agents and law enforcement partners continue to make America Safe Again.” The case inflamed tensions over Trump’s immigration crackdown, with his administration branding Dugan an activist judge and Democrats countering that the administration is trying to make an example of Dugan to blunt judicial opposition to the operation. U.S. Attorney Brad Schimel, a former Republican Wisconsin attorney general and judge, denied the case was political and urged people to accept the verdict peacefully. “Some have sought to make this about a larger political battle,” Schimel said. “While this case is serious for all involved, it is ultimately about a single day, a single bad day, in a public courthouse. The defendant is certainly not evil. Nor is she a martyr for some greater cause.” Dugan's defense attorney told the jury in closing arguments that the “top levels of government” were involved in bringing charges against Dugan. But prosecutors argued Dugan put her personal beliefs above the law. “You don’t have to agree with immigration enforcement policy to see this was wrong,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Brown Watzka told the jury in closing arguments. “You just have to agree the law applies equally to everyone.” Dugan did not testify. Dugan and her attorneys left the courtroom, ducked into a side conference room and closed the door without speaking to reporters. Steve Biskupic, her lead attorney, later said he was disappointed with the ruling and didn’t understand how the jury could have reached a split verdict since the elements of both charges were virtually the same. Dugan's attorneys were expected to appeal the verdict. A coalition of 13 advocacy groups, including Common Cause Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters Wisconsin, said “higher courts must carefully review the serious constitutional questions this case raises about due process, judicial authority, and federal overreach.” Dugan was suspended as a judge after she was charged and the Wisconsin Constitution bars convicted felons from holding office. The Wisconsin Judicial Commission, which oversees disciplining of judges in the state, did not respond to a request Friday for information about what happens next in Dugan’s case. On April 18, immigration officers went to the Milwaukee County courthouse after learning 31-year-old Eduardo Flores-Ruiz had reentered the country illegally and was scheduled to appear before Dugan for a hearing in a state battery case. Dugan confronted agents outside her courtroom and after they had left led Flores-Ruiz and his attorney out a private jury door. Agents spotted Flores-Ruiz in the corridor, followed him outside and arrested him after a foot chase. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in November he had been deported.