NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Kilmar Abrego Garcia is expected to be released from jail in Tennessee on Wednesday, only to be taken into immigration custody.
The Salvadoran national, whose wrongful deportation sparked intense debate over President Donald Trump’s immigration strategies, has been detained since his return to the U.S. on June 7. He is now facing two charges of human smuggling.
On Sunday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes decided that Abrego Garcia does not need to stay in jail until his trial. She is set to determine his release conditions by Wednesday afternoon, allowing him to leave according to her decision. However, both his defense lawyers and prosecutors believe that as soon as he is released from the criminal charges, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will likely detain him again.
Moreover, federal prosecutors are contesting Holmes’ decision to release him. They expressed in a Sunday motion a worry that Abrego Garcia might be deported before his trial occurs. Holmes has previously stated she will not intervene between the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security. It is up to these departments to choose whether to deport or prosecute Abrego Garcia.
Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty on June 13 to smuggling charges that his attorneys have characterized as an attempt to justify his mistaken deportation in March to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Those charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding in Tennessee during which Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers. At his detention hearing, Homeland Security Special Agent Peter Joseph testified that he did not begin investigating Abrego Garcia until April of this year.
Holmes said in her Sunday ruling that federal prosecutors failed to show that Abrego Garcia was a flight risk or a danger to the community. He has lived for more than a decade in Maryland, where he and his American wife are raising three children.
However, Holmes referred to her own ruling as “little more than an academic exercise,” noting that ICE plans to detain him. It is less clear what will happen after that. Although he can’t be deported to El Salvador — where an immigration judge found he faces a credible threat from gangs — he is still deportable to a third country as long as that country agrees to not send him to El Salvador.
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