BREAKING: Federal Judge Rules ICE Cannot Re-Detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia
The country’s most famous “Maryland Man” is allowed to stay free in Maryland for the foreseeable future, thanks to a federal judge’s ruling.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, appointed in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama, declared Tuesday that the government had presented no viable plan for deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia, according to the Associated Press.
Unless a higher court intervenes, the Salvadoran national can’t be held while he faces an indictment charging him with human smuggling.
BREAKING: The U.S. can't take Kilmar Abrego Garcia back into immigration custody because it doesn't have a viable plan to deport him, judge says. https://t.co/QGxwBZvJ3R
— The Associated Press (@AP) February 17, 2026
The ruling is the latest twist in the Abrego Garcia case, which has seen the illegal immigrant arrested, deported to his native country, visited in prison by a high-profile Democratic lawmaker, returned to the United States, freed, detained, and then freed again.
According to CNN, Abrego Garcia is now living with a brother in Maryland, under house arrest that keeps him inside unless going to work or attending court hearings, religious services, or medical appointments.
The Trump administration has the option of appealing Xinis’ ruling, CNN reported.
The administration has explored sending Abrego Garcia to countries in Africa, including Uganda and Eswatini, but none have panned out, the Associated Press reported. Meanwhile, Costa Rica, which has agreed to accept Abrego Garcia, has been “purposely — and for no reason — ignored,” Xinix wrote in her ruling, according to the Associated Press.
The Department of Homeland Security had not yet responded to the Xinis ruling issued Tuesday.
But the illegal immigrant’s attorney applauded the development, which protects Abrego Garcia from being re-arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement unless a higher court weighs in.
“Since Judge Xinis ordered Mr. Abrego Garcia released in mid-December, the government has tried one trick after another to try to get him re-detained,” Sandoval-Moshenberg wrote in an email on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
“In her decision today, she recognized that if the government were truly trying to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the United States, they would have sent him to Costa Rica long before today.”
Abrego Garcia was first taken into custody in March and was championed by liberals and liberal media outlets as a “Maryland man” who innocently ran afoul of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
That story changed somewhat when it became known that he was an alleged member of the violent MS-13 gang who had entered the country illegally.
He also had a history of domestic violence involving his wife, who obtained a restraining order against him in 2021.
Still, after he was initially deported to El Salvador, he became a cause célèbre on the left, and even received a prison visit from Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen.
After the Trump administration admitted Abrego Garcia had been sent to El Salvador in error — his life has reportedly been threatened by rival gang members — he was returned to the United States and indicted on charges of human trafficking stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee.
The indictment charges Abrego Garcia with being part of a smuggling ring from 2016 to 2025 “to transport undocumented aliens for profit and private financial gain.”
If Xinis’ ruling stands, it will mean Abrego Garcia will remain free in the U.S. until the case comes to trial.
The Trump administration “made one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success,” Xinis wrote, according to the Associated Press.
“From this, the Court easily concludes that there is no ‘good reason to believe’ removal is likely in the reasonably foreseeable future.”
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