Kilmar Abrego Garcia is released from federal custody in Tennessee
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from federal custody Friday, months after he was wrongfully deported to an El Salvador prison and accused of being a gang member.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in the Middle District of Tennessee ordered Abrego’s release from a jail near Nashville, Tennessee, where he had been held since he was freed from El Salvador’s CECOT prison in June.
Abrego is en route to his family in Maryland, Sean Hecker, one of his attorneys, said.
Abrego was “unlawfully arrested and deported, and then imprisoned, all because of the government’s vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the Administration’s continuing assault on the rule of law,” Hecker said in a statement.
He now has 48 hours to reach his brother’s house in suburban Maryland, where the judge said he’s allowed to live under a series of conditions. He’ll also have to check in with immigration officials at the ICE Baltimore field office.
Abrego, a father of three, said in a statement Friday: “Today has been a very special day because I have seen my family for the first time in more than 160 days.”
“I’d like to thank all the people who have supported me because after this long time I have witnessed that so many people have been by my side with such positivity,” he said. “Today I am grateful to God because He has heard me and today I am out. We are steps closer to justice, but justice has not been fully served.”
Abrego’s attorneys had requested the 30-day pause that prevented their client from walking free last month out of fear that he might be detained by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers upon his release.
That ruling followed two others that aimed to protect Abrego.
In July, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Nashville sought to release Abrego. At the time, Crenshaw denied a government motion to block his release, writing that the Trump administration had failed to provide evidence that Abrego must remain detained or that he is a flight risk.
Also last month, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland ruled that the U.S. government “shall restore Abrego Garcia to his ICE Order of Supervision out of the Baltimore Field Office.”
Xinis said her order to have Abrego placed under ICE supervision in Maryland, where he was living with his wife and children before he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, is necessary to “provide the kind of effective relief to which a wrongfully removed alien is entitled upon return.”
The July order, which also requires that the government provide 72 hours’ notice if it intends to deport Abrego to a third country, is “narrowly tailored” to allow the Trump administration to initiate “lawful immigration proceedings” upon Abrego’s return to Maryland.
“While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe. ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threaten to tear his family apart,” his attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “A measure of justice has been done, but the government must stop pursuing actions that would once again separate this family.”
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said that the fight is not over. “While I have no doubt the Administration will continue its attempts to undermine Mr. Abrego Garcia’s rights, we will continue fighting to see them maintained — because due process in this case does not end with his release,” the Maryland Democrat said in a statement.
“This is a matter that’s greater than just this one case or one man — if one person’s rights are denied, then the rights of all of us are at risk.”
Abrego Garcia’s case has become a central talking point in the Trump administration’s deportation efforts after a monthslong back-and-forth legal saga.
On Friday, the White House doubled down in its attack against Abrego.
“Abrego Garcia is a criminal illegal alien, wife-beater, and an MS-13 gang member facing serious charges of human smuggling. He will face justice for his crimes,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said. “It’s an insult to his victims that this left-wing magistrate intervened to put him back on the streets. Garcia will be subject to ankle monitoring to ensure the safety of the American public until further action can be taken.”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called Abrego’s release “a new low.”
“By ordering this monster loose on America’s streets, this judge has shown a complete disregard for the safety of the American people. We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country,” she wrote on X.
Abrego’s lawyers have denied allegations that he is a gang member. They have said he was born in El Salvador and illegally immigrated to the U.S. when he was 16 to join his brother in Maryland out of fear of gang violence in his home country.
He was first deported to CECOT — the notorious mega-prison in El Salvador — in March, in what the government called an “administrative error.”
The deportation directly conflicted with a judge’s 2019 ruling that Abrego not be deported and came after he was detained by local police and accused of being a member of MS-13, an international crime gang. He was not turned over to ICE in that case, and his family and friends have repeatedly denied his involvement in the group.
Abrego was returned to the U.S. in June and immediately federally charged with conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain and unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain in Nashville.
He has pleaded not guilty to both charges. A criminal jury trial in Tennessee over the human trafficking charges remains set for January.