Maryland District Court Judge Paula Xinis did what few others dare to do on Friday: face off against President Donald Trump.
The Obama-appointed district court judge ruled that the Trump administration must take “all available steps to facilitate the return” of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador. She slammed the White House for the “grievous error” and ordered the government to effectively rescue Abrego Garcia from custody in El Salvador.
Several United States officials have denounced her and labelled her an “activist judge”—a term that the White House has repeatedly used to dismiss any federal court that pushes back on Trump.
Xinis, born “Panagiota” Xinis in 1968, received her law degree from Yale Law School in 1997 after graduating summa cum laude from the University of Virginia.
She got her start as a law clerk for Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, who was nominated to the Court of Appeals by former President Bill Clinton. From 1998 to 2011, she served as an assistant federal public defender and then went on to practice both civil and criminal litigation for the Baltimore firm Murphy, Falcon & Murphy as both a senior trial attorney and partner.
She was an adjunct professor for the University of Maryland’s law school in 2000, and over the years, she’s lectured on topics like effective sentencing mitigation—presenting the court with alternatives to a defendant’s harsh penalty.
In 2015, former President Barack Obama nominated Xinis as a District Judge, and the Senate confirmed her nomination a year later in a 53-34 vote.
Her commitment to fairness was recorded early on during a hearing with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the 91-year-old president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate.
“The most important attribute of a judge is a combination of faithful, unbiased, evenhanded application of the law to the facts of each case, while treating each litigant, lawyer or witness who appears before the Court with dignity and respect,” she said at the time. “I am committed deeply to these principles, and if confirmed, would adhere to them in every case.”
She also said that she was unmotivated by “any political ideology” or “personal agenda.”
The White House thinks otherwise, and a Department of Justice spokesperson said that Xinis’ ruling “once again illustrates that activist judges do not have the jurisdiction to seize control of the President’s authority to conduct foreign policy.”
Late last week, Xinis wrote a scathing memorandum insisting that Abrego Garcia was protected on U.S. soil and the administration’s moves risked his life or freedom. At the time, the judge wrote that neither the Trump administration nor El Salvador authorities had told anyone why he “was returned to the very country to which he cannot return.”
“That silence is telling,” she said. “As Defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador —let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere.”
Xinis said that Abrego Garcia lived with his wife and three children for years in Maryland and has never been charged with or convicted of any crime. Now, he’s in a “notorious supermax prison known for widespread human rights violations.”
When men arrive in El Salvador, she said, they are “stripped” and “shackled” and join “nearly 40,000 other prisoners held in some of the most inhumane and squalid conditions known in any carceral system.”
Xinis added that Abrego Garcia’s detention appears “wholly lawless.” Her ruling comes as several other “activist” judges are slammed by Trump’s administration for not ruling in favor of the president. This includes Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge of the D.C. District Court, who is challenging Trump’s move to deport hundreds of people to El Salvador, which includes Abrego Garcia.
Department of Justice lawyers want to extend the deadline to bring Abrego Garcia home to April 16, two days after the El Salvadorian president visits the U.S. Their request has not been granted.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Judge Xinis for comment.
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