US immigration agency arrests Kilmar Abrego Garcia days after release

ISTANBUL

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Kilmar Abrego Garcia on Monday, days after his Friday release from Tennessee criminal custody.

"Today, ICE law enforcement arrested Kilmar Abrego Garcia and are processing him for deportation," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said through the US social media company X.

Noem described Garcia as an "MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator," adding that US President Donald Trump would not allow him to "terrorize American citizens any longer."

Garcia's lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg accused authorities of punishing his client for exercising constitutional rights. "The only reason that they chose to take him into detention is to punish him," he said.

The lawyer argued Garcia was being penalized "for exercising his constitutional rights, his constitutional right to fight back against being illegally deported to El Salvador, his constitutional right to speak up through his court filings on the torture and treatment that he received in El Salvador."

The lawyer also noted that Garcia was already under electronic monitoring and house arrest through the US Marshals Service, making detention unnecessary.

Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison in March 2025 without criminal charges. After months of detention, he was returned to face federal human smuggling charges in the US state of Tennessee.

A court previously ruled that the Trump administration cannot attempt re-deportation until after Garcia's human smuggling trial, scheduled for Jan. 27, 2027.