Bob Probert of the Detroit Red Wings...

Bob Probert of the Detroit Red Wings can remain free while he appeals a deportation order from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, a federal judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge Horace Gilmore said the statute being used by the INS to try to detain Probert was unconstitutional because it called for detention without a bond hearing.

Probert, 25, was arrested on March 2, 1989, trying to smuggle a half-ounce of cocaine into Detroit from Windsor, Canada. He pleaded guilty and spent three months in a federal prison and another three months in a Detroit halfway house. He is on three years’ probation.

Probert was reinstated by the NHL on March 9 at the request of the Red Wings after an 80-game suspension. But the right wing has been unable to travel with the club when it plays in Canada because he would be denied permission to re-enter the United States.