A federal judge prohibits ICE from detaining Salvadoran Kilmar Ábrego again and explains why
The magistrate ruled that the 90-day detention period has expired and there are no "good reasons to believe" that deportation is likely.
A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may not detain Salvadoran national Kilmar Ábrego García again. The decision, issued Tuesday, comes after the 90-day detention period expired and the U.S. government failed to present a concrete deportation plan.
Ábrego’s case reflects the immigration crackdown launched by U.S. President Donald Trump. Last year, Ábrego, 30, was unlawfully deported to El Salvador.
After a series of court rulings, he returned to the United States in June 2025. Since then, he has faced continued legal action and has been accused of being a member of the gang MS-13.
The Trump administration made several attempts to deport Ábrego García to a third country in Africa. Uganda, Eswatini, and Ghana all made clear they would not accept him.
With those efforts unsuccessful, Maryland federal judge Paula Xinis concluded there was no legal basis to keep him in immigration custody. She stated that federal officials “have done nothing to demonstrate that the continued detention of Ábrego complies with due process.”
“The court readily concludes that there are no ‘good reasons to believe’ that deportation is likely in the reasonably foreseeable future,” Judge Xinis wrote in her 10-page order. She also reiterated that the government “deliberately ignored” Costa Rica, the only country that offered to receive Ábrego as a refugee and to which he had agreed to go.
The case of Kilmar Ábrego García
Kilmar Ábrego entered the United States without authorization at age 16. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him protection after finding that he would face danger if returned to his home country due to threats from the gang Barrio 18.
In March 2025, he was deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador, in violation of that court order. After returning to the United States, he was jailed and faced federal human trafficking charges in Tennessee.
Following his release from immigration custody in December, he returned to his home in Maryland with his wife, a U.S. citizen, and their three children. He remains under strict conditions of supervised release and may not leave his residence except for work, religious services, medical appointments, or court proceedings.
A hearing is scheduled for next week to test the validity of the criminal case against Ábrego in Tennessee. His defense team maintains that he is being unfairly targeted.
Ábrego’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, argued that immigration detention should not serve as punishment. “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,” he said in an email 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.”
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