Kilmar Ábrego García was wrongly deported by the Trump administration to the notorious prison in El Salvador in March this year, a case that has received enormous attention.
He was returned to the USA in June after the Supreme Court ordered the American government to do everything to get him home since they acknowledged that he had been wrongly deported.
Charged
Back in the USA, he was arrested and charged with suspected human trafficking. The charge is based on an incident in 2022, when he was stopped for speeding and suspected of transporting undocumented migrants to other parts of the country.
The trial is expected to start in early 2027.
Ábrego García, who was born in El Salvador, entered the USA illegally in 2011. He was arrested but received a form of residence permit in 2019 when an immigration judge decided that he could not be sent back to his home country due to threats from criminal gangs. He is married to an American citizen.
Ábrego García was given the green light to return home to Maryland already in June, but has remained in custody since his lawyers claimed that he risks being deported as soon as he is released.
"An insult"
A recent ruling, however, means that Ábrego García must be given time to challenge any such decision.
One of Ábrego García's lawyers says in a statement that his client has been reunited with his family.
"Although this brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe."
The Trump administration has reacted strongly to Ábrego García's release.
In a post on X, Abigail Jackson, deputy press secretary to the White House, calls Ábrego García, among other things, a criminal, wife abuser, and member of the Salvadoran gang M-13.
"It is an insult to his victims that this left-wing judge intervened and released him," she writes, adding that Ábrego García should be monitored with the help of an ankle monitor.
