Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran migrant whose wrongful deportation became a flash-point in U.S. immigration policy, was released from federal custody in Tennessee on 22 August after U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes approved his pre-trial release. A private security team is taking the 30-year-old back to his wife and children in Maryland. Abrego Garcia had spent the past two months in a Nashville-area jail after U.S. marshals returned him from El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison, where he was sent in March despite a 2019 court order forbidding removal to his home country. The Supreme Court in April upheld a directive requiring the government to bring him back, intensifying a legal saga that has drawn national attention. Federal prosecutors accuse Abrego Garcia of conspiring to transport thousands of undocumented migrants, including alleged MS-13 members, and have charged him with two counts of human smuggling. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial in the Middle District of Tennessee is scheduled to begin in January. Earlier this week, his attorneys asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing he is the target of “vindictive and selective” prosecution. Under a separate order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, immigration authorities must place Abrego Garcia under an ICE supervision program in Baltimore and provide at least 72 hours’ notice before any future attempt to detain or deport him. While officials say they may still seek his removal to a third country, two federal judges have ruled that the government has not shown he is a danger or flight risk. His release marks the first time he has been free since March, though both the criminal proceedings and immigration questions remain unresolved.