The judge said the Trump administration has made “a series of empty threats” to deport Salvadoran nationals to Africa.
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Published February 17, 2026
A U.S. federal judge has ruled that President Donald Trump’s administration cannot remand Kilmer Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was wrongfully deported last year and who the federal government was seeking to deport again.
U.S. District Judge Paula Kishinis said Tuesday that 90 days in custody have passed without the government offering a viable plan to deport Abrego-Garcia. Garcia’s lawyers argue that he was punished because his wrongful detention embarrassed the government.
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Sinis said the government “made a series of empty threats to deport him to African countries, with no real hope of success.”
“From this, the court readily concludes that there is no ‘sufficient reason to believe’ that removal is likely to occur in the reasonably foreseeable future,” it added.
The ruling is a victory for Abrego-Garcia, who has been fighting deportation by U.S. immigration authorities to send her to African countries such as Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana and Liberia. Abrego Garcia was released from an immigration detention facility in December.
His illegal deportation to El Salvador and incarceration in a prison known for poor conditions and widespread abuse was an early flashpoint in the Trump administration’s push to deport noncitizens from the United States with little effort to adhere to due process requirements. The Trump administration had also accused Abrego-Garcia of being a member of the MS-13 criminal organization, without providing any evidence.
His mistaken deportation has sparked widespread outrage and calls for the Trump administration to return him to the United States. The Trump administration returned Abrego-Garcia to the United States in June after receiving a court order ordering him to return home, although the Trump administration initially said it did not have the authority to do so. Authorities later charged him with human smuggling, a charge he denies.
