Washington DC - A Salvadoran migrant who was wrongly deported and then returned to the US was released from prison Friday after being detained on human smuggling charges, according to his lawyer.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia was brought back to the US from El Salvador in June after being summarily deported three months earlier alongside more than 200 other people as part of US President Donald Trump's crackdown on migrants.

He was charged upon his return with trafficking undocumented migrants, but was released Friday from a prison in Tennessee at the order of a US magistrate judge.

"Today, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is free," his attorney Sean Hecker said in a statement.

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"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," the statement continued.

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

"He is grateful that his access to American courts has provided meaningful due process," his lawyer said.