Xinis was born in Mineola, New York, graduated from the University of Virginia and went to Yale Law School. She clerked for Judge Diana Gribbon Motz on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. She was an assistant federal public defender in Maryland and adjunct professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.

A federal judge in Maryland set new deadlines on Wednesday for the Trump administration to meet as part of the court’s effort to understand what the government has done to attempt to retrieve Kilmar Abrego Garcia from detention in El Salvador.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis has denied the Trump administration's request to pause the discovery process in the case of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia.