NASHVILLE − The 30-year-old Maryland man at the center of the Trump administration’s controversial plan to send migrants to a Salvadoran megaprison was released from custody Aug. 22, more than five months after his arrest and illegal deportation.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, is now set to return to his wife and children as his deportation case continues in a winding court battle that spans multiple states and countries – even coming before the U.S. Supreme Court. His lawyers have sought to prevent him from being arrested once more by immigration officials.
Attorney Sean Hecker told The Tennessean, part of USA TODAY Network, that Abrego Garcia was free and on his way to Maryland.
“Today, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is free,” Hecker said in a statement. “He is presently en route to his family in Maryland, after being 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. He is grateful that his access to American courts has provided meaningful due process.”
Hecker said Abrego Garcia was let out of the Putnam County Jail, located about 80 miles east of Nashville.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes, on the federal bench in Tennessee, issued the terms of his release on Aug. 21 from the custody of U.S. Marshals. Under the terms of his release, Holmes ordered Abrego Garcia to travel directly to Maryland and report for pretrial services no later than the morning of Aug. 25. He would be staying in the custody of his brother.
Meanwhile, the judge laid out conditions if ICE would detain him again, which would see him brought back to Tennessee for further proceedings in the smuggling case. If he were to be in ICE custody, Holmes said, he should have access to his attorneys, in person and by phone, so he could prepare for his trial.
Holmes and a federal district judge both ruled that Abrego Garcia was entitled to release before his trial on smuggling charges. But because his attorneys feared he would be placed in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and summarily deported, judges agreed to postpone letting him out of U.S. Marshals custody.
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A court order in a different case ensures he will not be immediately picked up by ICE agents in Tennessee. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, of Maryland, ruled on July 23 that the federal government must restore Abrego Garcia to his ICE order of supervision in Baltimore and give his attorneys at least 72 hours’ notice of any plans to deport him.
That means he could still be detained in Maryland, where his wife and three children live and have sought his return for months.
A sheetmetal worker living in suburban Washington, DC, Abrego Garcia became the face of President Donald Trump’s sweeping and controversial deportation tactics. Abrego Garcia entered the country illegally around 2012 as a teen. Immigration officials issued a final order of removal in 2019, but they said he could not be released to his home country of El Salvador due to credible fears of persecution by gangs in that country.
On March 12, federal immigration agents stopped Abrego Garcia, with his son in the backseat, as the father returned from work. They accused him of gang ties. He was one of hundreds of migrant men quickly shipped to the Terrorism Confinement Center in El Salvador, where he said he faced torture. His wife identified him in dramatic videos promoted by the Salvadoran government as one of the shackled men shuttled into the notorious prison, based on the scars on his head.
The Trump administration labeled him an MS-13 gang member, without evidence. The government lawyers were frequently scolded by federal judges who dismissed the accusations against Abrego Garcia as baseless and ordered that he be returned to the United States, since he was illegally deported. A government lawyer assigned to the case became a whistleblower after the administration defied court orders.
When he was deported to El Salvador earlier this year, Abrego Garcia was under a court order that prohibited his deportation to El Salvador. Both the Trump administration and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said they couldn’t return him to the United States, but he was returned nevertheless after the Justice Department filed smuggling charges in Tennessee stemming from a 2022 traffic stop. Officials have said they may deport Abrego Garcia to a different country.
Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, had fought for his release, appearing at court hearings in Maryland and Tennessee. Trump administration officials released details on family disputes, including allegations of domestic abuse, in their push to keep him in custody. His wife pushed back on those details and maintained her husband’s innocence on the other charges.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said they retained a private security firm to take him to Maryland once he is released from custody.
Mealins reports for The Tennessean in Nashville.
This story was updated to add additional information.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kilmar Abrego Garcia released from jail as deportation case continues
