Kilmar Abrego Garcia could be released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday.
The Salvadoran native, who was wrongly deported to CECOT in March, has been in criminal custody after the federal government returned him to the U.S. in June to face human smuggling charges.
Once he’s released, immigration authorities will not be allowed to detain Abrego Garcia. Last month, a federal judge 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.
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.
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.
