KILMAR ABREGO WALKS FREE
A WRONGFUL DEPORTATION TURNED INTO A COURTROOM SHOWDOWN
Kilmar Abrego García should never have been deported. A federal immigration judge ruled back in 2019 that sending him back to El Salvador would be tantamount to handing him over to the gangs who had already marked him. But this March, in what the government later brushed off as an “administrative error,” he was shackled, put on a plane, and dumped in the very country that a U.S. court said was off-limits.
For months, the Trump administration refused to bring him back. Only after a federal judge intervened and the press turned up the heat did the government fly him to the U.S. — not as an act of contrition, but to face charges for allegedly transporting undocumented migrants.
On Friday, a Tennessee court cut through the smoke. Judge Waverly Crenshaw affirmed Abrego’s release, ruling that he posed neither a danger to the community nor a flight risk. For the first time since March, Kilmar Abrego walked out of custody.
THE GOVERNMENT NOW FACES A MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR LAWSUIT
Abrego’s ordeal is far from over — but now the tables are turning. He and his family have filed a civil lawsuit in Maryland, and his lawyers are pushing hard for sanctions, oversight, and damages.
The case isn’t just about one man’s suffering. It’s about whether a president can bulldoze court orders, trample due process, and shrug off judicial authority as if it were a minor inconvenience. Judges aren’t buying it. When the Trump administration tried to dismiss the suit as “moot,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis rejected the motion outright, calling it “meritless.” She’s also ordered immigration officials to give Abrego’s legal team at least three days’ notice before any attempt to deport him again.
VINDICTIVE PROSECUTION, RETALIATORY CHARGES
Abrego’s lawyers have gone further, accusing federal prosecutors of retaliation. They argue that the smuggling charges were cooked up as punishment for daring to challenge the government’s lawless deportation. The legal term is vindictive prosecution, and if the courts agree, those charges could collapse just as dramatically as the deportation order that sent him to El Salvador.
It’s not just a legal battle anymore. It’s a referendum on whether the Trump administration can use its immigration dragnet as both a political weapon and a shield against accountability.
A FAMILY REUNITED, A FIGHT JUST BEGINNING
For now, Kilmar Abrego is back in Maryland, reunited with his wife, their child, and her two other children. His defense team arranged for private security to drive him there after release, wary of ICE agents lying in wait. He’ll report to a pretrial supervision officer, but at least he can do so from home rather than a cell.
The fight is far from over. The government is still threatening to deport him to a so-called “third country.” The criminal case is still looming. But Abrego is no longer a powerless migrant caught in the gears of Trump’s deportation machine. He’s a plaintiff. He’s standing in front of judges who have already shown they won’t rubber-stamp authoritarian excess. And he’s demanding accountability — with a price tag that could cost the administration millions.
THE GOOD NEWS
Kilmar Abrego is free, his family is whole again, and the courts are finally calling out Trump’s government for the lawlessness it thought it could get away with. His case is a reminder that even in the face of state power run amok, the law can still strike back — and sometimes, it strikes back hard.
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I wish people would stop using the term deported. He was NOT deported. He was arrested and sent to a concentration without due process. What this regime is doing in regards to immigration does not meet any definition of deportation in the United States.
He & his lawyers need to SUE this Criminal Administration!!