Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday, the latest development in a dramatic legal saga surrounding the wrongly deported Maryland father of three.This marks the first time he has not been imprisoned since the Trump administration deported him to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador in March and later brought him back to the US to face human smuggling charges.Since being returned to the US in June to face the pair of federal charges, Abrego Garcia has been behind bars in Tennessee, where he successfully convinced two federal judges to order his release while he awaits trial.

But even as Abrego Garcia walked out of a jail in Tennessee Friday afternoon to make his way back to Maryland, where he was living and working before the Trump administration wrongfully deported him in mid-March, his immediate fate in the US remained uncertain.Administration officials have wavered this summer on whether they would deport him before his criminal trial is scheduled to begin in January. That equivocation prompted a federal judge in Maryland to set up guardrails last month to ensure Abrego Garcia isn’t hastily removed from the US again.

“Today, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is free. He is presently en route to his family in Maryland, after being unlawfully arrested and deported, and then imprisoned, all because of the government’s vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the administration’s continuing assault on the rule of law,” Sean Hecker, one of Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, said in a statement.

“He is grateful that his access to American courts has provided meaningful due process,” Hecker added.

Prosecutors did not show that Abrego Garcia is a ‘danger’ to others

Federal prosecutors mounted a weekslong effort this summer to keep Abrego Garcia behind bars pending his trial on the pair of human smuggling charges.They sought to paint him as a dangerous criminal whose alleged crimes and personal history warranted detention while his case unfolded. But both a magistrate judge in Nashville and the federal judge overseeing his trial resoundingly rejected those arguments.