Abrego Garcia ordered freed, but faces re-arrest by ICE

Patricia Hurtado, Bloomberg News on Jun 25, 2025

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Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who the Trump administration mistakenly deported to a prison in El Salvador, remains in legal limbo after defeating a bid by the government to keep him locked up on criminal charges.

While both a U.S. magistrate and a district judge have said Abrego Garcia should be released, lawyers for the government and his lawyers continued to argue whether he should be immediately freed from custody.

U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw Jr. in Nashville on Wednesday rejected the government’s request to stop Abrego Garcia’s release after prosecutors argued he was a flight risk or could threaten witnesses in his criminal case over alleged smuggling of migrants.

Government lawyers have said that even if a court ordered his release, Abrego Garcia would still “likely” be placed in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and may be deported.

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a dangerous criminal illegal alien,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in an email after the ruling. “We have said it for months and it remains true to this day: he will never go free on American soil.”

Abrego Garcia’s case has become a lightning rod for President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, which have seen the administration move to ramp up deportations of undocumented migrants. The Supreme Court had ordered the administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return after officials acknowledged that under a prior court order, he wasn’t supposed to be sent to his native country because he could be in danger.

While he was brought back to the U.S. from El Salvador in early June, he was indicted on federal charges that he illegally transported undocumented immigrants within America. Attorney General Pam Bondi said an investigation determined that he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13 and a “danger to our community.”

On June 22, US Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ruled that Abrego Garcia could be released from detention after finding that prosecutors failed to show he was a flight risk or posed a danger to the community. Holmes noted that ICE planned to detain Abrego Garcia even if she ordered him freed.

Based on his own review of the case, Crenshaw on Wednesday wrote that prosecutors “had not made a strong showing required to justify” granting the government’s request to halt the release of Abrego Garcia, who has a wife and child in the U.S. The judge set a hearing for July 16 to consider evidence of whether Abrego Garcia should be taken into custody as he awaits trial.

Sean Hecker, a lawyer for Abrego Garcia, said he was pleased with the judge’s ruling.

“The executive branch can and should take all reasonable steps to ensure that Mr. Abrego is afforded due process and a full opportunity to contest charges that the government took truly extraordinary — indeed, unprecedented — steps to advance,” he said in an email.

The case is U.S. v. Garcia, 25-cr-00115, U.S. District Court, Middle District of Tennessee (Nashville).

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(With assistance from Chris Strohm and Zoe Tillman.)

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