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Salvadoran migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from federal custody Friday in Tennessee and is slated to return to his family in Maryland, though his legal proceedings are far from over.
Abrego Garcia, who was charged earlier this year with transporting illegal immigrants in the U.S., will remain in the custody of his brother. The charges stemmed from a 2022 traffic stop, but court filings later revealed the investigation began while he was jailed in El Salvador, raising questions about how the probe was conducted.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes on Friday issued an order in the Middle District of Tennessee setting the conditions of Abrego Garcia’s release, placing him in his brother’s custody as a third-party custodian ahead of trial. He must wear an electronic monitoring device, check in with Pretrial Services in Maryland and report there no later than 10 a.m. on Aug. 25.
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An undated photo provided by Murray Osorio PLLC of Kilmar Abrego Garcia (Murray Osorio PLLC via AP)
“Thereafter, Abrego must remain in the custody of his brother as the designated third-party custodian and in compliance with all conditions of pretrial release,” Holmes said in her order.
News of his release was met with fierce backlash by some Trump officials. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, in a statement Friday, denounced the decision as the work of “activist liberal judges” who have “attempted to obstruct” law enforcement.
“We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country,” she vowed.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a news conference July 8, 2025, at Reagan National Airport in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Fox News was told by multiple sources that neither DHS nor ICE had “immediate plans” to arrest Abrego Garcia on immigration grounds due to the conditions laid out by a federal judge in Maryland.
Still, the conditions of his release — codified in excruciating detail in separate orders from federal courts in Tennessee and Maryland — have sparked frustration among staff at both agencies, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The agencies have reportedly been consulting with the Justice Department on further guidance, though any next steps on the matter remain unclear.
Lawyers for the Justice Department had vehemently opposed Abrego Garcia’s release, arguing at an evidentiary hearing earlier this year that he was a danger to the community.
But Holmes and U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr., also of Tennessee, separately determined that Abrego Garcia was eligible for release pending trial. Crenshaw, for his part, said in his ruling that the Justice Department “fails to provide any evidence that there is something in Abrego’s history, or his exhibited characteristics, that warrants detention.”
Holmes agreed to stay Abrego Garcia’s release from federal custody in July for a 30-day period that expired on Friday. She did so at the request of Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, who had cited fears that ICE would detain him and immediately begin the process to remove him to a third country.
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A member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus holds a picture of Kilmar Abrego Garcia during a news conference to discuss Abrego Garcia’s arrest and deportation at Cannon House Office Building April 9, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Justice Department officials told U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland last July that they planned to immediately take Abrego Garcia into ICE custody pending his release from U.S. Marshal custody in Tennesee and deport him to a third country, regardless of the status of his criminal case.
“There’s no intention to just put him in limbo in ICE custody while we wait for the criminal case to unfold,” a lawyer for DOJ told Judge Xinis.
She later issued an order blocking ICE from immediately deporting Abrego Garcia when he is released from federal custody.
Xinis, who since March has presided over the separate, months-long civil case that was brought by his family, also ordered the Trump administration in July to give Abrego Garcia a 72-hour notice period before beginning any deportation proceedings. This was done, she said, to give him the opportunity to consult with his attorneys or to challenge his removal to a third country via the appropriate channels.
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Bondi speaks alongside President Donald Trump on recent Supreme Court rulings in the briefing room at the White House June 27, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March in violation of a 2019 court order, and in what Trump administration officials later acknowledged was an “administrative error.”
He entered the country illegally more than a decade ago and had been living in Maryland with his wife and child when authorities deported him to a maximum security prison in El Salvador in March.
Trump officials have repeatedly alleged that Abrego Garcia is a vicious MS-13 gang member, a notion Crenshaw dismissed as “fanciful.”
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Earlier this week, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the criminal case against him, arguing in a new court filing that the criminal case by the Trump administration amounts to a “vindictive” and selective prosecution.
“Those motions are infrequently made and rarely succeed,” they acknowledged. “But if there has ever been a case for dismissal on those grounds, this is that case.”
Fox News’s Bill Melugin contributed to this report.
