Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported in March before being brought back to the U.S., has been released from criminal custody in Tennessee and is on his way to Maryland, an attorney for Abrego Garcia told ABC News.
The Salvadoran native has been in criminal custody since the federal government brought him back to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges.
Once he is is released, immigration authorities will not be allowed to detain Abrego Garcia due to a ruling from a federal judge who last month ordered the government to return him to Maryland and blocked the administration from deporting him upon his release in Tennessee.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said this week that they hired a private security company to bring him to Maryland.
In her July order, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis 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 Garcia placed under ICE supervision in Maryland, where he was living with his wife and children before he was mistakenly deported 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 the government to provide 72 hours’ notice if it intends to deport Abrego Garcia to a third country, is “narrowly tailored” to allow the Trump administration to initiate “lawful immigration proceedings upon Abrego Garcia’s return to Maryland.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant in this handout image obtained by Reuters on April 9, 2025.
Abrego Garcia Family via Reuters
The immigration proceedings may or may not include “lawful arrest, detention and eventual removal,” Xinis said.
Abrego Garcia was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which his family and attorneys deny.
He was brought back to the U.S. last month to face charges in Tennessee of allegedly transporting undocumented migrants within the U.S. while he was living in Maryland. He has pleaded not guilty.
On Tuesday, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys accused federal prosecutors of “vindictive and selective prosecution” in a motion seeking to dismiss the criminal charges against him.
In the 25-page filing, the attorneys argued that the government charged him “because he refused to acquiesce in the government’s violation of his due process rights.”
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been singled out by the United States government,” his attorneys said.
Abrego Garcia’s trial in his human smuggling case is set to begin on Jan. 27, 2027.
