Washington (AFP) - A wrongly deported Salvadoran man sent back to the United States during a fierce row over President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration policies was released Friday from prison, where he had been detained on human smuggling charges.

The US Supreme Court had ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia after the government admitted it had mistakenly sent him to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador in March.

He was returned in June, and then quickly arrested and charged with trafficking undocumented migrants. On Friday, he was released from prison in Tennessee at the order of a US judge.

Migrant rights organization CASA released a statement quoting Abrego Garcia as saying it was a “very special day” after seeing his family for the first time in more than 160 days.

“We are steps closer to justice, but justice has not been fully served,” the Salvadoran said, according to CASA, which hailed him as a “symbol of strength, resistance and hope.”

The case has become emblematic of Trump’s crackdown on illegal migration.

Right-wing supporters praise the Republican president’s toughness, but legal scholars and human rights advocates have blasted what they say is a haphazard rush to deport people in violation of basic US laws.

Abrego Garcia’s attorney Sean Hecker, who earlier confirmed that his client was heading home to the eastern US state of Maryland, accused Trump’s government of a “vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the administration’s continuing assault on the rule of law.”

Hecker said his client was “grateful that his access to American courts has provided meaningful due process.”

But the saga may not be over for the Salvadoran, who is married to a US citizen.

- Uganda deportation threat -

The Trump administration is not barred from initiating “lawful immigration proceedings upon Abrego Garcia’s return to Maryland” – provided it gives 72 hours’ notice before deporting him to a third country – under a July federal court ruling.

Multiple US media outlets reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had notified his legal team that he had been ordered to report to immigration officials in Baltimore on Monday, and may be sent to the East African nation of Uganda.

DHS did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the reports, but the State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken on Thursday with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

US relations with Uganda deteriorated under Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden over its anti-homosexuality law, which in some cases allows for the death penalty. But the State Department under Rubio has sharply curbed criticism.

The White House called Abrego Garcia’s release an “insult,” describing him as a “criminal illegal alien, wife-beater” and member of Salvadoran gang MS-13.

“Garcia will be subject to ankle monitoring to ensure the safety of the American public until further action can be taken,” Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson posted on X.

Abrego Garcia had been living in the United States under protected legal status since 2019, when a judge ruled he should not be deported because he could be harmed in his home country.

Then he became one of more than 200 people sent to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison as part of Trump’s crackdown on undocumented migrants.

But Justice Department lawyers admitted that the Salvadoran had been wrongly deported due to an “administrative error.”

Abrego Garcia – who denies wrongdoing – now stands accused of involvement in smuggling undocumented migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and other countries into the United States between 2016 and earlier this year.

His trial in his human smuggling case is set to begin in January 2027.