Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported in March earlier than being introduced again to the U.S., has been launched from felony custody in Tennessee and is on his approach to Maryland, an lawyer for Abrego Garcia advised ABC Information.
The Salvadoran native has been in felony custody for the reason that federal authorities introduced him back to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling fees.
As soon as he’s is launched, immigration authorities is not going to be allowed to detain Abrego Garcia as a consequence of a ruling from a federal choose who final month ordered the federal government to return him to Maryland and blocked the administration from deporting him upon his launch in Tennessee.
Abrego Garcia’s legal professionals mentioned this week that they employed a personal safety firm to deliver him to Maryland.
In her July order, U.S. District Choose Paula Xinis dominated that the U.S. authorities “shall restore Abrego Garcia to his ICE Order of Supervision out of the Baltimore Subject Workplace.”
Xinis mentioned her order to have Abrego Garcia positioned beneath ICE supervision in Maryland, the place he was residing together with his spouse and kids earlier than he was mistakenly deported in March, is important to “present the form of efficient reduction to which a wrongfully eliminated alien is entitled upon return.”
The July order, which additionally requires the federal government to supply 72 hours’ discover if it intends to deport Abrego Garcia to a 3rd nation, is “narrowly tailor-made” to permit the Trump administration to provoke “lawful immigration proceedings upon Abrego Garcia’s return to Maryland.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant on this handout picture obtained by Reuters on April 9, 2025.
Abrego Garcia Household through Reuters
The immigration proceedings could or could not embrace “lawful arrest, detention and eventual removing,” Xinis mentioned.
Abrego Garcia was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — regardless of a 2019 court docket order barring his deportation to that nation as a consequence of worry of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the felony gang MS-13, which his household and attorneys deny.
He was brought back to the U.S. last month to face fees in Tennessee of allegedly transporting undocumented migrants throughout the U.S. whereas he was residing in Maryland. He has pleaded not responsible.
On Tuesday, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys accused federal prosecutors of “vindictive and selective prosecution” in a movement searching for to dismiss the felony fees towards him.
Within the 25-page submitting, the attorneys argued that the federal government charged him “as a result of he refused to acquiesce within the authorities’s violation of his due course of rights.”
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been singled out by the USA authorities,” his attorneys mentioned.
Abrego Garcia’s trial in his human smuggling case is ready to start on Jan. 27, 2027.
