A federal magistrate judge in Tennessee agreed to delay the release of MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia so he doesn’t get deported.
The AP reported:
Kilmar Abrego Garcia will stay in jail for now over concerns that he could be deported if he’s released to await his trial on human smuggling charges, a federal judge in Tennessee ruled Monday.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys had asked the judge to delay his release because of what they described as “contradictory statements” by President Donald Trump’s administration over what would happen to the Salvadoran national. The lawyers wrote in a brief to the court that “we cannot put any faith in any representation made on this issue” by the Justice Department, adding that the “irony of this request is not lost on anyone.”
The Justice Department last Thursday told a judge that they will begin deportation proceedings after a federal judge ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia to be released.
Last Wednesday, US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, an Obama appointee, said Abrego Garcia should not be detained as he awaits a trial on federal child-trafficking charges.
Judge Crenshaw is the second judge to order Abrego Garcia released pending trial. Last Sunday federal magistrate judge Barbara Holmes ruled MS-13 gang member and wife beater Kilmar Abrego Garcia should not be detained on his criminal charges.
Abrego Garcia was not released from prison because he was detained by ICE.
The DOJ previously told the Court that Abrego Garcia will be deported to a ‘third country’ that is not El Salvador after he is released from a Tennessee jail.
Government prosecutors did not give a timeline for the removal process but said it was not imminent.
Earlier this month Kilmar Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty to human trafficking charges as and fought for his release pending trial.
Abrego Garcia appeared in a Nashville court clad in a red jumpsuit.
A federal grand jury in Tennessee recently indicted Kilmar Abrego Garcia for “transporting undocumented migrants within the United States.”
He was charged with one count of conspiracy to transport aliens and one count of unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens.
According to the indictment, Kilmar Abrego Garcia and co-conspirators from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and the US were trafficking illegal aliens from 2016 through 2025.
Read the indictment here.
“If convicted at trial, the defendant faces a maximum punishment of 10 years’ imprisonment for ‘each alien’ he transported,” the government said.
ABC News reported that according to the government’s motion for detention, an Abrego Garcia co-conspirator told the feds that Abrego Garcia was involved in the murder of a rival gang member’s mother.
Last month Fox News obtained 2022 bodycam footage that shows Kilmar Abrego Garcia being caught human trafficking in Tennessee.
WATCH:
BREAKING: Fox has obtained the body cam footage that shows Kilmar Abrego Garcia being caught human trafficking in 2022.
Biden’s FBI was called, and said to simply release Abrego Garcia. Biden’s ICE was called, and never bothered to show up.
For decades, American elites… pic.twitter.com/Z4LPHRFd7Q
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) May 2, 2025
Read the full article here