A Maryland man found himself at the heart of the Trump administration’s controversial plan to send immigrants to a mega prison in Salvador.
Judge Ruhr Kilmer Abrego Garcia must be released before trial
A federal judge ruled that Kilmer Abrego Garcia must be released before trial in Tennessee on charges of smuggling.
- Kilmer Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was previously deported to a Salvador prison, has been released from US custody in Tennessee.
- Abrego Garcia is still facing smuggling charges in Tennessee, but was released to return to his Maryland family while the cases continued.
- Another court order prevents his immediate deportation from Tennessee, but he could still be detained by Maryland ice.
NASHVILLE — At the heart of the Trump administration’s controversial plan to send immigrants to MegaPrison in Salvador, Maryland, 30, was released from custody on August 22, more than five months after his arrest and illegal deportation.
Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia is set to return to his wife and children as his deportation case continues in a winding court battle that spans multiple states and countries. His lawyers are asking him to prevent him from being arrested again by immigration officials.
Attorney Sean Hecker told Tennessee, part of the USA Today Network, that Abrego Garcia is free and on his way to Maryland.
“Kilmer Abrego Garcia is free today,” Hecker said in a statement. “He now headed to his Maryland family and continued attacks on the rule of law due to the government’s vindictive attacks, which had the courage to counter the ongoing attacks of the government after being illegally arrested and deported.
Hecker said Abrego Garcia was released from the Putnam County Jail, about 80 miles east of Nashville.
US Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes, on the federal bench in Tennessee, issued the terms of his release from custody of the former US S on August 21. Under the conditions of his release, Holmes ordered Abrego Garcia to travel directly to Maryland and report pretrial services by the morning of August 25th. He will remain under the control of his brother.
Meanwhile, the judge cut down on the condition that the ice would custody him again. Holmes said if he had protected Ice custody, he should have access to his lawyers directly and over the phone so that he could prepare for his trial.
Holmes and a federal district judge ruled that both Abrego Garcia is entitled to be released before trial on smuggling charges. However, his lawyers feared that he would be placed in immigration and customs enforcement custody and be deported immediately, so the judge agreed to oust him from our ex-s custody.
A court order in another case ensures that he will not be picked up immediately by a Tennessee ice agent. Maryland US District Judge Paula Sinis ruled on July 23 that the federal government must restore Abrego Garcia to a Baltimore supervision order and give his lawyers at least 72 hours of notice of plans to banish him.
That means he could still be detained in Maryland, where his wife and three children live and have been seeking his return for several months.
Sheet metal workers living in D.C., a suburb of Washington, has made Abrego Garcia the face of President Donald Trump’s radical and controversial deportation tactics. Abrego Garcia entered the country illegally around 2012 as a teenager. Immigration officers issued a final removal order in 2019, but they said he could not release him to his native Salvador due to credible fears of persecution by the country’s gangs.
On March 12, federal immigration agents stopped Abrego Garcia by placing their son in the back seat when his father returned from work. They accused him of gang bonds. He was one of hundreds of migrant men who were quickly shipped to a terrorist confinement center in El Salvador, where he said he was faced with torture. His wife identified him as one of the notoriously locked up prison as one of the men in bondage based on the wounds on his head.
The Trump administration labeled him a member of the MS-13 gang, but there was no evidence. Government lawyers dismissed the charges against Abrego Garcia as baseless and were frequently scolded by federal judges who ordered him to be returned to the United States as he was illegally deported. The government lawyer assigned to the case became a whistleblower after the administration ignored court orders.
When he was deported to El Salvador earlier this year, Abrego Garcia had received a court order banning deportation to El Salvador. The Trump administration and Salvador President Naive Buquere said he could not return to the United States, but he was still returned after the Justice Department filed smuggling charges in Tennessee, a result of a traffic stop in 2022. Authorities say they may oust Abrego Garcia to another country.
Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sula, fought for release and appeared at court hearings in Maryland and Tennessee. Trump administration officials have released details about family disputes, including domestic abuse allegations. His wife pushed back those details and kept her husband innocence on other charges.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said he retained a private security company to take him to Maryland after he was released from custody.
Meilins reports on the state of Tennessee in Nashville.
This story has been updated to add additional information.
