Kilmar Ábrego García has been freed on Friday from criminal custody in Tennessee so he can rejoin his family in Maryland while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges, after a court ordered his release.
Magistrate judge Barbara Holmes issued an order allowing the father of two to leave custody for the first time since his return to the US in June, following his wrongful deportation to El Salvador earlier this year.
In a statement following his release, Ábrego’s lawyer, Sean Hecker said: “Today, Kilmar Ábrego García is free. He is presently en route to his family in Maryland, after being unlawfully arrested and deported, and then imprisoned, all because of the government’s vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the administration’s continuing assault on the rule of law. He is grateful that his access to American courts has provided meaningful due process.”
Ábrego entered the US without permission in about 2011 as a teenager after fleeing gang violence. He was subsequently afforded a federal protection order against deportation to El Salvador.
The 30-year-old was initially deported by federal immigration officials in March. Though the Trump administration admitted that Ábrego’s deportation was an “administrative error,” officials have repeatedly accused Ábrego of being affiliated with the MS-13 gang, a claim Ábrego and his family vehemently deny.
Related: Denied, detained, deported: the faces of Trump’s immigration crackdown
During his detention at El Salvador’s so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), Ábrego was physically and psychologically tortured, according to court documents filed by his lawyers in July.
Following Ábrego’s wrongful deportation, the Trump administration faced widespread pressure to return him to the US, including from a supreme court order that directed federal officials to “facilitate” his return.
In June, the Trump administration returned Ábrego from El Salvador, only to charge him with crimes related to human smuggling, which his lawyers have rejected as “preposterous”. His criminal trial is expected to begin in January.
Before his deportation, Ábrego had lived in Maryland for more than a decade, working in construction while being married to an American wife.
In a court filing this week, his lawyers stated that they had hired a “private security firm that has experience providing court-approved pre-trial transportation and security services in criminal cases” to transport Ábrego from Tennessee to Maryland.
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