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OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
6:56 PM – Friday, August 22, 2025
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran illegal alien who was deported back to his home country from the U.S. after being deemed a member of MS-13 by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday — despite his pending human smuggling criminal case.
“Today, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is free,” Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Sean Hecker, told Fox 17. “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.”
However, recent reports indicate that ICE may be planning to deport him to Uganda by Monday, according to emails sent by the DHS to his legal counsel.
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In 2019, an immigration court upheld his asylum claim citing “credible threats from gangs in El Salvador,” specifically Barrio 18, blocking his removal. The 18th Street gang (Barrio 18) has a longstanding and violent rivalry with the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), whom Abrego Garcia ironically claims to have no involvement with.
The same year, he was also detained during a traffic stop in Maryland while transporting (smuggling) nine other illegal aliens.
Law enforcement accused him of having gang ties based on his “notable MS-13 tattoo,” but no charges were filed yet at the time. However, Prince George’s County Police Department detectives noted that García displayed traits associated with MS-13 gang culture, including the “tattoos,” “clothing,” and information from a government “source.”
President Trump even posed in a picture showing his tattoo, yet mainstream media outlets have maintained that the image shown by Trump had been photoshopped. Fact-checkers from outlets like The Washington Post, CBS News, and Al Jazeera argued that the knuckle letters did not exist on Garcia’s real tattoos. They described the photo as “manipulated or photoshopped.”
Abrego Garcia was then deported to his home country of El Salvador in March this year. Upon arrival, he was held in the notorious CECOT prison.
As of Friday this week, Garcia has now been released from a Tennessee jail to return to Maryland under a strict “home detention with electronic monitoring,” while he reconnects with his family.
He still faces federal human smuggling charges related to the 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, though he has pleaded not guilty. His attorneys argue the charges are “retaliatory,” stemming from his “wrongful deportation” and subsequent legal challenges.
A judge has ordered that he cannot be deported without 72 hours’ notice, and his trial is scheduled for January 2026.
“The filing argues that the government has engaged in a vindictive prosecution, seeking to penalize Abrego Garcia for asserting his rights, rather than accepting an unjust outcome. Our motion makes clear that such tactics are inconsistent with principles of fairness and justice, and that the prosecution should be dismissed,” said Hecker Fink, the law firm representing Abrego Garcia, in a press release.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also responded to his case in a statement to Newsweek back in June.
“Abrego Garcia was never an innocent ‘Maryland Man’– Abrego Garcia is an illegal alien terrorist, gang member, and human trafficker who has spent his entire life abusing innocent people, especially women and the most vulnerable [referencing his domestic assault charge that was dropped]. Abrego Garcia will now return to the United States to answer for his crimes and meet the full force of American justice,” Leavitt said.
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