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.
An attorney representing Kilmar Abrego Garcia told ABC News Friday that while his client’s release brings some relief, he is “far from safe.”
“For the first time since March, our client Kilmar Abrego Garcia is reunited with his loving family,” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg. “While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe. ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threaten to tear his family apart. A measure of justice has been done, but the government must stop pursuing actions that would once again separate this family.”
Abrego Garcia must remain in the custody of his brother in Maryland, according to his release order.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant in this handout image obtained by Reuters on April 9, 2025.
Abrego Garcia Family via Reuters
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes said Abrego Garcia shall travel directly to Maryland and must report by phone to Pretrial Services for the District of Maryland by no later than 10:00 a.m. Monday.
Holmes said that Abrego Garcia is reminded that if “he is taken into ICE custody, he is required by the conditions of his release to consent to being transported back to this district for further proceedings in this case.”
The conditions of release include that Abrego Garcia must submit to supervision by Pretrial Services as instructed, continue or actively seek employment, not obtain a passport or other international travel document and get anger management treatment.
Other conditions require Abrego Garcia to not contact “directly or indirectly with any known MS-13 gang members.”
Should Abrego be taken into immigration custody following his return to Maryland, Judge Holmes said, the U.S. government “shall ensure that, while Abrego remains in ICE custody, he has access to his attorneys, both physically and via telephone, to allow Abrego to prepare for trial in this case.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem criticized the release of Abrego Garcia Friday, saying, “Activist liberal judges have attempted to obstruct our law enforcement every step of the way in removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country.”
She added, “Today, we reached a new low with this publicity hungry Maryland judge mandating this illegal alien who is a MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator be allowed free.”
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.”
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.
