By Katabella Roberts
Contributing Writer
A judge said on Wednesday that she would order the pretrial release without bail of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national deported to his home country earlier this year, but that he would likely be taken into immigration custody immediately.
Abrego Garcia, 29, entered the United States illegally more than a decade ago. The Trump administration has alleged that he is a member of the notorious MS-13 gang and deported him to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador in March, despite a 2019 judicial order barring his removal to his home country.
His lawyers have denied the government’s claims, and he was returned to the United States earlier this month after a court ruling determined that he should not have been deported.
Nashville-based Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes did not state during a court hearing when she would file the release order for Abrego Garcia, who is set to be released without bail, but it will not happen before Friday afternoon.
Abrego Garcia would likely be immediately taken into immigration custody when he’s released and still faces human trafficking charges, the judge noted.
Holmes said during the hearing that Abrego Garcia would also be required to seek employment while released and limit his travel to the Nashville area and Maryland, though she noted those conditions would only apply in the event he is released from immigration custody.
The judge’s statement comes after she ruled on Sunday that the Trump administration could not detain Abrego Garcia pending his trial, finding that statements from cooperating witnesses were not reliable enough to detain him and that the government had failed to prove he poses “an irremediable danger to other persons or to the community,” or a serious flight risk.
Abrego Garcia had been living in Maryland with his wife, a U.S. citizen, and their young son when he was deported to his home country in March. His lawyers have denied claims that he is an MS-13 member, saying he left El Salvador at age 16 to escape gang-related violence and has never been charged with or convicted of a crime.
He has acknowledged that he entered the United States illegally in 2012, according to court documents.
Abrego Garcia was indicted by a federal grand jury in Tennessee on May 21 on two felony charges of smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States and conspiring with others to do so.
According to the indictment, between 2016 through in or around 2025, Abrego Garcia and other individuals conspired to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere, “ultimately passing through Mexico before crossing into Texas.”
The indictment states Abrego Garcia “used his status in MS-13 to further his criminal activity” and said that many of those whom he allegedly transported into the United States were MS-13 members and associates.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges on June 13.
His attorneys have called the case against him “baseless.”
“This is all based on the statements of individuals who are currently either facing prosecution or in federal prison,” attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said after his client was returned to the United States.
“There’s no way a jury is going to see the evidence and agree that this sheet metal worker is the leader of an international MS-13 smuggling conspiracy.”
The Supreme Court ruled in April that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States and ensure that his case “is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”
The administration has said there was an administrative error in his deportation.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
