Kilmar Abrego Garcia will remain locked up so that the Trump administration can’t deport the alleged MS-13 gangbanger, a federal judge in Tennessee ruled Monday.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers asked Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes to keep their client behind bars over “contradictory statements” by the Trump administration about whether or not he will be deported, according to court documents.
Abrego Garcia, who was reported for El Salvador’s hellhole prison and later brought back after a Justice Department lawyer said he was sent there by mistake, now faces human smuggling charges and allegations that he’s a member of Salvadoran gang MS-13.
A federal judge ruled that Kilmar Abrego Garcia will stay in jail as he awaits his trial on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. via REUTERS
Department of Justice spokesman Chad Gilmartin told the AP Thursday that the feds intend to see the smuggling case through before deporting Abrego Garcia.DOJ attorney Jonathan Guynn told a federal judge in Maryland last week that the US government intends to deport Abrego Garcia to a “third country” and not his native El Salvador. Guynn said there was no timeline for the removal.
Abrego Garcia’s legal team said they feared Guynn’s statement could mean he will be deported “immediately.”
Holmes ruled on June 22 that the feds failed to show evidence that Abrego Garcia would flee justice if he was released from custody.
The Nashville-based judge then moved toward releasing Abrego Garcia during a June 25 hearing. One of the conditions set for his possible release was that Abrego Garcia would have to live with his US citizen brother in Maryland.
A courtroom sketch of Abrego Garcia at his detention hearing on June 25, 2025 in Nashville. AP
Holmes, however, later changed her mind and sided with Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, who claimed the Trump administration could remove him from the country before the case was finished.
The lawyers asked Holmes to wait to release him until at least July 16.
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ICE has placed a detainer on Abrego Garcia to ensure he’s not released into the community.
Abrego Garcia can’t be deported back to his home country of El Salvador following the Supreme Court’s ruling that he was unlawfully returned there earlier this year by the Trump administration.
The Salvadoran citizen entered the US illegally in 2011. He was arrested in Baltimore on March 12 and accused of trafficking and having ties to MS-13.
The Trump administration sent Abrego Garcia to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT mega prison. The feds returned him to the US on June 6 to face smuggling charges after he allegedly transported illegal immigrants from Texas to Maryland in an SUV in 2022 as part of a human smuggling conspiracy.
Abrego Garcia was paid up to $1,500 per smuggling trip and may have raked in more than $100,000 each year through the trafficking scheme, which also victimized minors, federal authorities claim.
Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty earlier this month.