By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -A U.S. judge on Sunday ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the migrant returned to the U.S. in early June after being wrongfully deported to his native El Salvador, released on bail pending his criminal trial on migrant smuggling charges.
But the decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville, Tennessee does not necessarily mean Abrego, as he prefers to be known, will go home to his family. The judge had acknowledged at a June 13 court hearing that Abrego was likely to be placed in immigration detention even if he is released.
Abrego, a Maryland resident whose wife and young child are U.S. citizens, was deported on March 15 to El Salvador, despite a 2019 immigration court ruling that he not be sent there because he could be persecuted by gangs. Officials called his removal an “administrative error,” but for months said they could not bring him back.
Critics of President Donald Trump pointed to Abrego’s case as evidence his administration was prioritizing increased deportations over due process, the bedrock principle that people in the U.S., whether citizens or not, can contest governmental actions against them in the courts. Trump, who has pledged to crack down on illegal immigration, has said Abrego belongs to the MS-13 gang – an accusation that his lawyers deny.
The Justice Department brought Abrego back to the U.S. on June 6 after earlier securing an indictment charging him with working with at least five co-conspirators as part of a smuggling ring to bring immigrants to the United States illegally.
Prosecutors say Abrego, 29, picked up migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border more than 100 times, and also transported firearms and drugs.
Abrego has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers say the Trump administration brought the charges to cover up their violations of Abrego’s rights, and say the alleged co-conspirators cooperating with prosecutors should not be trusted because they are seeking relief from deportation and criminal charges of their own.
In her ruling Sunday, Holmes said the government failed to show that Abrego posed a danger to the community or was unlikely to appear in court, scheduling a hearing for Wednesday.
In a separate civil case, Greenbelt, Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis is investigating whether the Trump administration violated her order to facilitate Abrego’s return from El Salvador. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld that order.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington; Editing by Deepa Babington and Christopher Cushing)
