The judge acknowledged in her ruling that determining whether Abrego Garcia should be released is "little more than an academic exercise" because ICE will likely detain him.

A judge in Tennessee said the Justice Department hasn’t made a convincing case that Kilmar Abrego Garcia should be kept in pretrial detention, though the mistakenly deported man who was returned to the US is likely to remain in federal immigration custody regardless.

A Tennessee judge has ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s release from jail while he awaits a federal trial on human smuggling charges, but he is not expected to be allowed to go free.