The illegal immigrant from El Salvador is also facing federal human smuggling charges.
A federal judge has blocked U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) from re-arresting Kilmar Abrego Garcia, one of the men at the center of the Trump administration’s deportation battles.
The Salvadoran national’s case attracted attention across the country, including widespread protests, after the federal government detained him in March 2025 and shipped him to El Salvador’s maximum security prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center, along with an airplane full of other deportees.
He was later returned to the United States, where he has had long-running legal battles with the administration.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who ordered the administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return last year, ruled on Feb. 17 that he cannot be deported again because the federal government has not presented a feasible plan for removing him from the country.
The judge said that despite releasing Abrego Garcia, the government appeared to be making plans to re-detain him, so Abrego Garcia filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order to prevent being re-detained.
The court previously granted the requested order.
n the new order, the court granted Abrego Garcia’s request to upgrade the temporary restraining order to an injunction to prevent him from being re-detained.
Abrego Garcia, who entered the United States illegally more than a decade ago, had been living in Maryland when federal agents arrested him.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security takes the position that Abrego Garcia is a “violent criminal illegal alien, and MS-13 gang member,” who “belongs behind bars and off American soil.”
Abrego Garcia, who is facing separate criminal charges, denies being a member of MS-13, which has been designated a terrorist organization.
Xinis previously ordered his release on Dec. 11, 2025, finding that because the federal government had never issued a final order of removal against him, it could not detain him in order to force him from the country.
The government said in a brief last month that Abrego Garcia may be detained because an immigration judge issued an order of removal on Dec. 11, 2025, that became final on Jan. 13 of this year.
