Kilmar Ábrego García was freed from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday to await trial at home in Maryland on human smuggling charges, following a court order for his release.
Magistrate judge Barbara Holmes authorised the 30-year-old’s release, allowing him to rejoin his family for the first time since his return to the United States in June after a wrongful deportation to El Salvador earlier this year.
Ábrego’s lawyer, Sean Hecker, said in a statement: “Today, Kilmar Ábrego García is free. 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.”
Ábrego trial
Ábrego first entered the United States in 2011 as a teenager, fleeing gang violence in El Salvador. He was later granted federal protection against deportation. Despite this, immigration officials deported him in March. The Trump administration later admitted the deportation had been an “administrative error.”
During his detention in El Salvador’s high-security Terrorism Confinement Centre, Ábrego was subjected to physical and psychological torture, according to court filings. The deportation provoked widespread pressure on Washington, including a supreme court order directing officials to return him.
He was brought back to the US in June but was charged with human smuggling offences, which his lawyers described as “preposterous.” His trial is scheduled for January.
Ábrego, who has lived in Maryland for more than a decade, is married to an American citizen and worked in construction before his deportation. In a recent filing, his lawyers confirmed they had hired a private security firm to oversee his transport from Tennessee to Maryland under court-approved conditions.
