A federal judge has declared that immigration authorities are unable to re-detain Kilmar Abergo Garcia, the subject of a viral deportation case where activists judges have refused to allow the Trump administration to deport the El Salvadorian illegal immigrant.
🚨🚨🚨Judge Xinis strikes again...says Garcia can't be detained pending removal. 1/ pic.twitter.com/m9jf1qRw85
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) February 17, 2026
Obama-appointed Judge Paula Xinis, who also ruled that the Trump administration must remove Garcia from custody, decided that immigration authorities were unable to arrest Garcia once again because a 90-day detention period had passed and because the Trump administration had no “viable plan” to carry out his deportation, according to the Associated Press.
Xinis argued that the Trump administration “also appeared to make speedy plans to re-detain him, in violation of certainly the spirit, if not the letter,” of her prior ruling to release Garcia. He had previously been deported to El Salvador in an administrative error before being returned to the United States, where he was arrested once again on human smuggling charges.
Some new information has also come to light in Garcia’s case, showing the Department of Justice produced a transcript from Garcia’s 2019 hearing in which he declared his home country of El Salvador as his designated country of removal. When asked if he feared persecution or torture in El Salvador, he simply stated that he had fears about being an accused gang member.
New information in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case that I have not seen reported elsewhere: in a filing last month, DOJ produced a transcript of an immigration court hearing from May 2019 where Mr. Abrego Garcia agreed to have his native El Salvador be designated as his country of… pic.twitter.com/EvMbfwG2kR
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) February 17, 2026
He and his attorneys would later twist that detail, stating instead that he was worried that he would be targeted by a gang who had a run-in with his family.
Immigration officials have continued to attempt to deport Garcia to a third-party country, but require a final notice of removal before they are able to proceed.