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(CN) — Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man famous for his wrongful deportation to the notorious CECOT megaprison in El Salvador, was released from jail in Tennessee on Friday.
His release marks a blow to the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, as Department of Homeland Security officials had repeatedly claimed that the Salvadoran immigrant would never be released.
Ábrego García will return to his family in Maryland as he awaits trial on human-smuggling charges. It will be his first time back in the state since March, when he was accused of being a gang member and summarily deported to El Salvador along with nearly 300 others.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg of the immigration firm Murray Osorio is helping represent Ábrego García.
In an emailed statement, he welcomed his release as a chance for Ábrego García to see his family for the first time in more than five months.
“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,” Sandoval-Moshenberg stated. “A measure of justice has been done, but the government must stop pursuing actions that would once again separate this family.”
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr., a Barack Obama appointee, ruled on July 23 that Ábrego García had to be released pending his criminal trial on two counts of immigration-related human smuggling.
That same day, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis preemptively ruled that once Ábrego García was released, ICE could not immediately take him into custody.
Instead, the Maryland federal judge ordered that his case be transferred to the ICE Field Office in Baltimore. She also imposed a 72-hour window for Ábrego García to challenge any removal to a third country.
“The court shares plaintiffs’ ongoing concern that, absent meaningful safeguards, defendants may once again remove Abrego Garcia from the United States,” Xinis, also an Obama appointee, wrote in an 18-page opinion. “Thus, additional relief is necessary.”
Besides Crenshaw’s ruling, Xinis’ order also followed a pair of evidentiary hearings in early July, where a top ICE official revealed that Ábrego García could be immediately removed to Mexico or South Sudan with little opportunity for him to challenge the deportation.
Thomas Giles, assistant director for Enforcement and Removal Operations, testified that under new Department of Homeland Security policies, immigrants can be summarily deported to any country, so long as that country provides credible “diplomatic assurances” that the person will not face persecution or torture.
Since Giles testified, public reporting has revealed summary deportations to Eswatini and Uzbekistan.
Ábrego García has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges against him, which stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. He was driving with nine passengers in the car. Officers let him off with a warning.
The Trump administration has cast Ábrego García as a dangerous criminal. At a July press conference, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called him a “horrible human being and a monster” who “should never be released.”
Attorneys representing Ábrego García in the matter argue he is being prosecuted in retaliation for challenging his removal to El Salvador. Earlier this week, they filed a motion to dismiss the charges.
In his order last month, Crenshaw said the Trump administration had not backed up its claims that Ábrego García is a gang member. He wrote, “There is no evidence before the court that Abrego: has markings or tattoos showing gang affiliation; has working relationships with known MS-13 members; ever told any of the witnesses that he is a MS-13 member; or has ever been affiliated with any sort of gang activity."
Nonetheless, in an emailed statement on Friday, Noem slammed Xinis for ordering Ábrego García’s release. She called Xinis an “activist liberal judge.”
“Today, we reached a new low with this publicity hungry Maryland judge,” Noem stated. “By ordering this monster loose on America’s streets, this judge has shown a complete disregard for the American people. We will not stop fighting til this Salvadoran man faces justice and is out of our country.”
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