Migrant Trump Imprisoned In El Salvador Has Been Released From Criminal Custody

Jennifer Bowers BahneyAug 22nd, 2025, 3:22 pm
 

FILE – Katheryn Millwee holds a portrait of Kilmar Abrego Garcia outside the federal courthouse on June 25, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration before being returned to the United States, has been released from criminal custody, according to ABC News.

Abrego Garcia was released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday and is heading back to Maryland with the help of private security, his attorney told ABC News. Abrego Garcia’s case became a flashpoint of contention in the early days of the Trump administration, which admitted he was deported by “administrative error” without any due process and was subsequently indefinitely imprisoned in El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison.

Abrego Garcia is a Salvadoran native who has been in criminal custody facing human smuggling charges since he was returned to the U.S. in June. Abrego Garcia, who is married to an American citizen, was granted protective status in the U.S. by a judge, who said the government could not deport him back to El Salvador out of fear for his safety. Garcia, however, did not have full legal status to stay in the U.S. and the Trump administration has continued to accuse him of gang membership and other illegal activities.

In a July order, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis wrote that the administration “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,'” ABC News reported.
Also laid out in the order, the federal government will be required to provide 72 hours’ notice if it intends to deport Abrego Garcia to a third country.
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