In a legal tug-of-war that’s been getting a lot of attention, a federal judge decided that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a person from El Salvador who the Donald Trump administration kicked out of the country by mistake in March, should be let go from jail while waiting for trial on charges of helping people cross the border. But then, in a shocking move, another judge stepped in!
On Wednesday, Judge Waverly Crenshaw from the U.S. District Court decided that the government hadn’t shown enough evidence to prove Abrego is a risk to run away or cause any harm. This all started from a traffic stop in 2022 in Tennessee. At the time, Abrego was living under the watchful eye of ICE in Maryland, but he was caught driving a car with nine people in it who didn’t have the papers to be in the country. He said he wasn’t guilty, but they kept him locked up anyway.
Later, they made a mistake and sent him back to El Salvador, which went against a 2019 court ruling that said Kilmar Abrego Garcia couldn’t be kicked out of the country because of dangerous gang problems he faced there.
Crenshaw wrote a strong opinion saying that the government’s evidence connecting Abrego to MS-13 was “already slim.” He thought it was “border[ing] on fanciful” to say that they were linked. In the end, he decided Kilmar Abrego Garcia wasn’t much of a threat and recommended letting them go, but with some rules to follow, as reported by ABC News.
Let’s talk about U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes from Tennessee. She stepped in just hours later and did something that both the defense and the prosecution had asked for. She gave a 30-day stay for Abrego’s release. For obvious reasons, Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s lawyers were concerned. They were afraid that if he were set free, ICE would be waiting to whisk him away for deportation even before he had a chance to take a single step in the right direction.
JUST IN: Nashville U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes has ordered the Trump administration to release MS-13 gang member and El Salvadoran illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia as he waits to stand trial on federal human smuggling charges.
“The Court does not find that these… pic.twitter.com/KaejCoc2GC
— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) June 23, 2025
Judge Paula Xinis from Maryland also shared those worries. In her own decision, she told the government that they need to give three full business days’ heads-up before they try to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia out of the country again. Plus, they have to put him back under the watch of ICE, like he was before they wrongfully kicked him out.
The decisions have really set people off on both sides. Homeland Security’s Tricia McLaughlin totally lost it on X, calling them “LAWLESS AND INSANE.” She went on to say that Abrego is an “MS-13 gang member” and a “criminal illegal alien,” which is interesting because the judges couldn’t find anything to back up those claims.
Let’s tell another story about Kilmar Abrego Garcia. This one has to do with his lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, and how a 4th Circuit judge (and the entire media) effectively got duped into underplaying the evidence that Abrego-Garcia was in MS-13. pic.twitter.com/dDk7kGaAuD
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) April 17, 2025
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, strongly criticized the government’s actions, referring to the recent decisions as a “powerful rebuke of the government’s lawless conduct.”
As of right now, Abrego is still being held. But there’s a 30-day limit looming, and the country is watching this closely. Everyone’s seeing it as an example of immigration issues, and the government may be going too far with its power.
