Aug. 22 (UPI) — A federal magistrate judge released El Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego Garcia from custody Friday while he awaits trial for alleged human trafficking in Tennessee.
U.S. District Court of Middle Tennessee Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ordered that Garcia would not have to remain in custody while awaiting to face federal criminal charge in June, He had bee returned from El Salvador after being deported there by mistake, the government said.
Garcia “is presently en route to his family in Maryland after being unlawfully arrested and deported and then imprisoned,” said Garcia’s attorney, Sean Hecker, as reported by The Guardian.
Hecker accused the Trump administration of engaging in a “vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the administration’s continuing assault on the rule of law.”
Garcia, 30, was heading home to rejoin his wife and two children.
He is charged with federal crimes related to alleged human trafficking, which led to his return to the United States in June after the Justice Department pressed charges against him in Tennessee.
Federal prosecutors sought to keep Garcia in custody while awaiting his federal trial in Nashville.
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. last month ruled the government did not show he is a danger to U.S. citizens or a flight risk.
“The government’s general statements about the crimes brought against Abrego, and the evidence it has in support of those crimes, do not prove Abrego’s dangerousness,” Crenshaw, an Obama appointee, said in a 37-page ruling.
His attorneys asked the court to keep Garcia in custody for 30 days after Trump administration officials said they would deport him again if he were released from custody. Holmes approved the request to prevent Garcia’s likely deportation.
A federal judge in Maryland has ordered Garcia to remain in the United States while awaiting trial, which might have negated his potential deportation.
Garcia was arrested and deported to El Salvador in March after prior court proceedings concluded that he likely is a member of the MS-13 gang and illegally entered the United States in 2011.
A federal immigration judge denied Garcia’s asylum claim in 2019, but ruled he could not be deported to El Salvador, where he has said he fears persecution from a rival 18th Street Gang, which is active in the United States.
The Trump administration in January designated MS-13 and the 18th Street Gang as foreign terrorist organizations that pose a threat to the United States.
The Trump administration acknowledged Garcia was to be deported, but said an administrative error placed him on the deportation flight to El Salvador.
The El Salvadoran government placed Garcia in its Terrorism Confinement Center prison, commonly called CECOT, amid a crackdown on gangs in that country.
His lawyers claim he was psychologically and physically tortured while in the CECOT prison.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen Jr., D-Md., visited Garcia in El Salvador in a failed attempt to return him to the United States.
A subsequent Tennessee State Police video showed a November 2022 traffic stop near Nashville in which Garcia was pulled over for speeding and did not have a valid license.
Garcia had multiple passengers who were not U.S. citizens, which raised concerns of human trafficking and related violations.