Kilmar Abrego must be freed, judge rules — but ICE might grab him anyway

In a stunning defeat for the Trump administration, a judge said that she will order Abrego’s release pending trial soon. What ICE does next is another question.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia and his child (photo courtesy of CASA)

All Rise News recently reported that a judge appeared skeptical about the government’s evidence against Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Today, that judge denied the Trump administration’s request to detain him.

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Updated on June 23, 2025: This story has been updated to include comment from Abrego’s wife and additional context.

Dealing a stunning blow to the Trump administration, a judge ruled on Sunday that she will order the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia pending his trial on charges of conspiring to smuggle undocumented immigrants.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes indicated that she will issue that order with conditions following a future hearing.

“The Court will give Abrego the due process that he is guaranteed,” Holmes wrote in a 51-page order.

Prosecutors say that immigration authorities will take Abrego into custody if he is ordered released in his criminal case. They also seek to pause and reverse the judge’s ruling.

“This administration has put us through enough darkness”

Abrego’s wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura urged the government to let her husband come back home.

"Our children have gone three months without their father, his mother without her son, and his siblings without a brother,” Vasquez Sura said in a statement. “Kilmar has missed birthdays, Mother’s Day, Kilmar Jr.'s kindergarten graduation, and spent Father’s Day alone. In his own words—only God knows the darkness he has experienced in these last three months. We just want Kilmar home with us, where he belongs.”

In 2020 and 2021, Vasquez Sura sought orders of protection against Abrego, but the couple reconciled. The judge rejected the government’s arguments to keep him detained based on those incidents.

"Now that the judge has issued her ruling, we are praying Kilmar is released and that ICE does not tear our family apart again,” Vasquez Sura said. “Our children need their dad, and I need my life partner back home. This administration has put us through enough darkness.”

In March, the Trump administration whisked Abrego to a dangerous prison in El Salvador, even though a court order barred his deportation there for fear of persecution.

After losing before the Supreme Court, Trump’s Justice Department started an investigation that led to his indictment on conspiring to smuggle undocumented immigrants into the United States, but the judge’s devastating ruling repeatedly called the government’s evidence “unreliable.” The Trump administration’s allegations largely rested on the claims of two cooperating witnesses, and Judge Holmes found that their accounts often “defy common sense.”

Holmes also expressed skepticism of the government’s claim that Abrego belonged to the gang MS-13.

“The government alleges that Abrego is a long-time, well-known member of MS-13, which the Court would expect to be reflected in a criminal history, perhaps even of the kind of violent crimes and other criminal activity the government describes as typically associated with MS-13 gang membership,” she wrote. “But Abrego has no reported criminal history of any kind. And his reputed gang membership is contradicted by the government’s own evidence.”

“The bedrock of due process”

Since illegally sending Abrego to El Salvador, Trump and his cabinet members, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, have spent the intervening months attempting to retroactively justify their actions by accusing Abrego of being a gang member and human smuggler.

Those accusations largely crumbled during a federal court hearing on Friday, June 13, when FBI agent Peter Joseph shared details of the investigation for the first time. Joseph acknowledged that the investigation began on April 28, 2025, weeks after the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” Abrego’s release from the El Salvador terrorism prison.

For weeks, Trump’s Justice Department claimed that only El Salvador had the power to release Abrego, but federal prosecutors secretly sought his indictment in the Middle District of Tennessee. In late May, a grand jury returned a sealed indictment against Abrego, and the district’s top criminal division prosecutor Ben Schrader resigned on that day, reportedly concerned that the case had been politically motivated.

During the hearing, prosecutors revealed the evidence against Abrego for the first time, largely stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. Prosecutors say that Abrego appeared to have nine Hispanic individuals in a Chevrolet Suburban SUV, which authorities claim was registered to a two-time convict and five-time deportee named Jose Hernandez Reyes.

Authorities let Abrego leave at the time, finding no basis to arrest him after pulling him over for speeding.

But Trump’s Justice Department quickly recruited Hernandez Reyes and his close relative, anonymously known in the indictment as CC-3, as informants, who both seek help with their criminal exposure and immigration issues. Their accusations broadly form the basis of Abrego’s prosecution.

“Importantly, each cooperating witness upon whose statements the government’s argument for detention rests stands to gain something from their testimony in this case,” Holmes wrote.

The Middle District of Tennessee’s Acting U.S. Attorney Robert E. McGuire said during the recent hearing that, if Abrego is released, immigration authorities will take him into custody.

Holmes acknowledged that likelihood in her ruling.

“Perhaps the sole circumstance about which the government and Abrego may agree in this case is the likelihood that Abrego will remain in custody regardless of the outcome of the issues raised in the government’s motion for detention,” the ruling states. “Either Abrego will remain in the custody of the Attorney General or her designee pending trial if detained under the Bail Reform Act or he will likely remain in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (‘ICE’) custody subject to anticipated removal proceedings that are outside the jurisdiction of this Court. That suggests the Court’s determination of the detention issues is little more than an academic exercise.”

But the judge ultimately rejected that suggestion, writing the “foundation of the administration of our criminal law depends on the bedrock of due process.”

Holmes scheduled a hearing on Weds., June 25, to determine the conditions of Abrego’s release.

Read the full ruling here.