A man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration has been released from federal custody for the first time since March.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29 and originally from El Salvador, is facing charges of conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into the US.
Mr Garcia has been detained since his arrest in Maryland – where he lived with his American wife and child – by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in March.
Under a controversial 18th-century law he was then deported to El Salvador, where he was imprisoned in its notorious maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
This was despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order granting him protection from deportation after finding he was likely to be persecuted by local gangs if he was returned to his native country.
Democrat senator Chris Van Hollen, who met Mr Garcia in CECOT, said the 29-year-old was “traumatised” by the experience.
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The Trump administration admitted that deporting Mr Garcia was an “administrative error”, but said at the time they could not bring him back as they do not have jurisdiction over El Salvador.
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After eventually returning him to the US in June, the Trump administration detained Mr Garcia on criminal charges that were filed in May. Homeland Security officials have also said they plan to deport him to an unnamed third country.
Mr Garcia has been held in Putnam County jail in Tennessee since his return. Although he was eligible for pretrial release his lawyers requested he stay in custody over concerns he could be immediately deported again.
He was granted a release order after a ruling was passed in the state of Maryland, which meant Mr Garcia must be allowed time to mount a challenge to any deportation order.
The order required him to travel directly to Maryland, where he is in home detention with his brother designated as his custodian.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, his attorney, said later that he had been “reunited with his loving family”.
The criminal indictment alleges Mr Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the US illegally and transport them from the border to other destinations in the country.
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Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem criticised the decision to release Mr Garcia, 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 then called ordering his release a “new low” by a “publicity hungry Maryland judge” – referring to the judge overseeing his original deportation case instead of the Tennessee judge who ordered him freed – and added: “We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country.”
Ms Noem, US President Donald Trump, vice president JD Vance and other officials claim Mr Garcia was a member of MS-13 – an international criminal gang formed by immigrants who had fled El Salvador‘s civil war to protect Salvadoran immigrants from rival gangs.
Mr Garcia’s lawyers strongly deny the claims.
