Abrego Garcia lawyers again ask for delay in release from jail, citing deportation threat
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Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia ask judge to keep him in jail over deportation concerns
A federal judge in Nashville has been preparing to release Kilmar Abrego Garcia to await trial on human smuggling charges. But she’s been holding off over concerns that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would swiftly detain him and try to deport him again. A Justice Department spokesman told The Associated Press on Thursday that the department intends to try Abre Go Garcia on the smuggling charges before it moves to deported him. A DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement that “he will never go free on American soil.’ “The irony of this request is not lost on anyone,” the attorneys wrote. “In a just world, he would not seek to prolong his detention further.” “He will not walk free in our country again,’” a DHS spokesperson said in response to a question from the Associated Press regarding its plans for Abre go Garcia. � “We are not going to let him walk free.�”
This courtroom sketch depicts Kilmar Abrego Garcia sitting in court during his detention hearing on Wednesday, June 25, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (Diego Fishburn via AP)(AP/Diego Fishburn) This courtroom sketch depicts Kilmar Abrego Garcia sitting in court during his detention hearing on Wednesday, June 25, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (Diego Fishburn via AP)(AP/Diego Fishburn) NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia asked a federal judge in Tennessee on Friday to delay his release from jail because of “contradictory statements” by President Donald Trump’s administration over whether or not he’ll be deported upon release.
A federal judge in Nashville has been preparing to release Abrego Garcia to await trial on human smuggling charges. But she’s been holding off over concerns that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would swiftly detain him and try to deport him again.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys are now asking the judge to continue to detain him following statements by Trump administration officials “because we cannot put any faith in any representation made on this issue by” the Justice Department.
“The irony of this request is not lost on anyone,” the attorneys wrote.
Abrego Garcia, a construction worker who had been living in Maryland, became a flashpoint over Trump’s hard-line immigration policies when he was mistakenly deported to his native El Salvador in March. Facing mounting pressure and a Supreme Court order, Trump’s Republican administration returned him this month to face the smuggling charges, which his attorneys have called “preposterous.”
In a response to the request by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys on Friday, acting U.S. Attorney Rob McGuire agreed to delaying Abrego Garcia’s release. He reiterated his stance that Abrego Garcia should remain in jail before trial and that he lacks jurisdiction over ICE, stating that he has no way to prevent Abrego Garcia’s deportation.
The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, did not respond directly to a question from The Associated Press regarding its plans for Abrego Garcia. A DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement that “he will never go free on American soil.”
Justice Department spokesman Chad Gilmartin told The Associated Press on Thursday that the department intends to try Abrego Garcia on the smuggling charges before it moves to deport him, stating that Abrego Garcia “has been charged with horrific crimes, including trafficking children, and will not walk free in our country again.”
Hours earlier, Justice Department attorney Jonathan Guynn told a federal judge in Maryland that the U.S. government plans to deport Abrego Garcia to a “third country” that isn’t El Salvador. Guynn said there was no timeline for the deportation plans.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys on Friday cited Guynn’s comments as a reason to fear he would be deported “immediately.” They accused the Trump administration of bringing Abrego Garcia back “to convict him in the court of public opinion” with the intention of deporting him before he has a chance to defend himself at trial.
“In a just world, he would not seek to prolong his detention further,” his attorneys wrote.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have asked the judge to delay his release until a July 16 court hearing, which will consider a request by prosecutors to revoke Abrego Garcia’s release order while he awaits trial.
Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty on June 13 to smuggling charges that his attorneys have characterized as an attempt to justify his mistaken expulsion to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
When the Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia in March, it violated a U.S. immigration judge’s order in 2019 that barred his expulsion to his native country. The immigration judge had found that Abrego Garcia faced a credible threat from gangs that had terrorized him and his family.
The human smuggling charges pending against Abrego Garcia stem from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding in Tennessee, during which Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers without luggage.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville wrote in a ruling Sunday that federal prosecutors failed to show that Abrego Garcia was a flight risk or a danger to the community.
During a court hearing Wednesday, Holmes set specific conditions for Abrego Garcia’s release that included him living with his brother, a U.S. citizen, in Maryland. But she held off on releasing him over concerns that prosecutors can’t prevent ICE from deporting him.
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Finley reported from Norfolk, Va.
Copyright © 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
Judge keeps Abrego Garcia in jail over deportation concerns
Kilmar Abrego Garcia will stay in jail for now over concerns that he could be deported if he’s released to await his trial on human smuggling charges. A federal judge in Tennessee ruled Monday that the government did not prove his release would pose an immediate danger to the public. Abre go Garcia’s attorneys had asked the judge to delay his release because of what they described as “contradictory statements” by President Donald Trump’s administration over what would happen to the Salvadoran national. Justice Department spokesman Chad Gilmartin told The Associated Press on Thursday that the department intends to try Abre Go Garcia on the smuggling charges before it moves to deport him. The 29-year-old construction worker was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March and returned to the U.S. this month to face the human smuggling charge. His attorneys have accused the Trump administration of bringing him back to convict him in “to convict him” and a Supreme Court order, the administration has called “preposterous”
Advertisement Kilmar Abrego Garcia to remain in jail for now over deportation concerns, judge rules Monday Editorial Standards ⓘ
Kilmar Abrego Garcia will stay in jail for now over concerns that he could be deported if he’s released to await his trial on human smuggling charges, a federal judge in Tennessee ruled Monday.Video above: Kilmar Abrego Garcia to remain in jail amid court arguments (Friday)Abrego Garcia’s attorneys had asked the judge to delay his release because of what they described as “contradictory statements” by President Donald Trump’s administration over what would happen to the Salvadoran national.The lawyers wrote in a brief to the court that “we cannot put any faith in any representation made on this issue” by the Justice Department, adding that the “irony of this request is not lost on anyone.”Justice Department spokesman Chad Gilmartin told The Associated Press on Thursday that the department intends to try Abrego Garcia on the smuggling charges before it moves to deport him, stating that Abrego Garcia “has been charged with horrific crimes.”Hours earlier, Justice Department attorney Jonathan Guynn told a federal judge in Maryland that the U.S. government plans to deport Abrego Garcia to a “third country” that isn’t his native El Salvador. Guynn said there was no timeline for the deportation plans.Abrego Garcia’s attorneys on Friday cited Guynn’s comments as a reason to fear he would be deported “immediately.”Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old construction worker who had been living in Prince George’s County, became a flashpoint over Trump’s hardline immigration policies when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March. Facing mounting pressure and a Supreme Court order, the administration returned him this month to face the human smuggling charges, which his attorneys have called “preposterous.”Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have accused the Trump administration of bringing Abrego Garcia back “to convict him in the court of public opinion” with the intention of deporting him before he has a chance to defend himself at trial.Video below: Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s attorney calls charges baseless”In a just world, he would not seek to prolong his detention further,” his attorneys wrote Friday. U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville ruled on June 22 that federal prosecutors failed to show that Abrego Garcia was a flight risk or a danger to the community. During a court hearing on June 25, Holmes set specific conditions for Abrego Garcia’s release that included him living with his brother, a U.S. citizen, in Maryland. But she held off on releasing him over concerns that prosecutors can’t prevent ICE from deporting him.Acting U.S. Attorney Rob McGuire told the judge he lacks jurisdiction over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, stating he has no way to prevent Abrego Garcia’s deportation.Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have asked the judge to delay his release until a July 16 court hearing, which will consider a request by prosecutors to revoke Abrego Garcia’s release order while he awaits trial. Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty on June 13 to smuggling charges. Video below: Kilmar Abrego Garcia pleads not guiltyThe Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, did not respond directly to a question from The Associated Press on Friday regarding its plans for Abrego Garcia. A DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement that “he will never go free on American soil.”When the Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia in March, it violated a U.S. immigration judge’s order in 2019 that barred his expulsion to his native country. The immigration judge had found that Abrego Garcia faced a credible threat from gangs that had terrorized him and his family.The human smuggling charges pending against Abrego Garcia stem from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding in Tennessee, during which Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers without luggage.
Judge orders Abrego Garcia to remain in custody after his lawyers raise deportation concerns
Judge orders Kilmar Abrego Garcia to remain in custody after his lawyers raise deportation concerns. Abre go Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador for three months by the Trump administration. He was returned to the U.S. where he now faces federal human smuggling charges. His legal team requested the delay, citing conflicting reports from the federal government over whether he would be allowed to stay in the U.,S. while his criminal case moves through the courts.”The irony of this request is not lost on anyone,” his attorneys wrote in a motion Friday. “Because DOJ has made directly contradictory statements on this issue … we respectfully request to delay the issuance of the release order,” they wrote.
toggle caption Diego Fishburn/AP
A federal judge in Tennessee has ordered a delay in the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia after his legal team raised concerns that the Salvadoran native could be deported upon release.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes on Monday ordered him held in federal custody. Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador for three months by the Trump administration, then returned to the U.S. where he now faces federal human smuggling charges.
Abrego Garcia’s legal team requested the delay, citing conflicting reports from the federal government over whether he would be allowed to stay in the U.S. while his criminal case moves through the courts.
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“The irony of this request is not lost on anyone,” his attorneys wrote in a motion Friday.
His attorneys pointed to an emergency hearing earlier in June in Maryland — Abrego Garcia’s home state — where the government said it planned to deport him to a third country as soon as he is released from jail. Later that day, a DOJ spokesperson told the Associated Press that the government intends to bring him to trial first.
“Because DOJ has made directly contradictory statements on this issue in the last 18 hours, and because we cannot put any faith in any representation made on this issue by the DOJ, we respectfully request to delay the issuance of the release order,” his attorneys wrote in the same motion.
Abrego Garcia was initially ordered released on bail June 22 by Judge Holmes in Nashville. Holmes stated that the government failed to show that Abrego Garcia was a flight risk or a danger to the community.
toggle caption Diego Fishburn/AP
In response, the federal government requested a stay of Holmes’ ruling ordering his release. A few days later, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw of Tennessee, appointed by former President Barack Obama, also found no justification to continue detaining Abrego Garcia.
Still, there was concern that Abrego Garcia would be taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement upon his release. ICE has said Abrego Garcia must be deported regardless of the outcome of his criminal trial. In his opinion, Crenshaw also acknowledged that the government “is in control” of where Abrego Garcia resides while he awaits trial.
Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported to El Salvador in March — where he was held in a notorious mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his removal to that country due to fear of persecution.
Immigration authorities accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the gang MS-13, which his wife and attorneys have denied. Federal officials later admitted that Abrego Garcia’s deportation was a mistake due to an “administrative error.”
In June, Abrego Garcia was brought back to the U.S. after a monthslong legal fight over his situation. President Trump’s Justice Department said he was returned to the U.S. to face federal charges, which allege that he conspired to transport thousands of migrants without legal status from Texas to various parts of the U.S. between 2016 and 2025.
Judge Again Delays Abrego Garcia’s Release From Tennessee Jail Over Deportation Concerns
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to his native El Salvador in March. He was returned to the U.S. this month to face human smuggling charges. His lawyers have asked the judge to delay his release because of “contradictory statements” by the Justice Department. A Justice Department spokesman said Thursday that the department intends to try him on the smuggling charges before it moves to deport him. The construction worker pleaded not guilty on June 13 to smuggling charges in Tennessee.. A DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement that “he will never go free on American soil.”. A federal judge in Tennessee ruled June 22 that federal prosecutors failed to show that AbreGO Garcia was a flight risk or a danger to the community. The immigration judge had found that he faced a credible threat from gangs that had terrorized him and his family.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys had asked the judge to delay his release because of what they described as “contradictory statements” by President Donald Trump’s administration over what would happen to the Salvadoran national. The lawyers wrote in a brief to the court Friday that “we cannot put any faith in any representation made on this issue” by the Justice Department, adding that the “irony of this request is not lost on anyone.”
Justice Department spokesman Chad Gilmartin told The Associated Press on Thursday that the department intends to try Abrego Garcia on the smuggling charges before it moves to deport him, stating that Abrego Garcia “has been charged with horrific crimes.”
Hours earlier, Justice Department attorney Jonathan Guynn told a federal judge in Maryland that the U.S. government plans to deport Abrego Garcia to a “third country” that isn’t El Salvador. Guynn said there was no timeline for the deportation plans.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys on Friday cited Guynn’s comments as a reason to fear he would be deported “immediately.”
Abrego Garcia, a construction worker who had been living in Maryland, became a flashpoint over Trump’s hardline immigration policies when he was mistakenly deported to his native El Salvador in March. Facing mounting pressure and a Supreme Court order, Trump’s Republican administration returned him this month to face the smuggling charges, which his attorneys have called “preposterous.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have accused the Trump administration of bringing Abrego Garcia back “to convict him in the court of public opinion” with the intention of deporting him before he has a chance to defend himself at trial.
“In a just world, he would not seek to prolong his detention further,” his attorneys wrote Friday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville ruled June 22 that federal prosecutors failed to show that Abrego Garcia was a flight risk or a danger to the community.
During a court hearing June 25, Holmes set specific conditions for Abrego Garcia’s release that included him living with his brother, a U.S. citizen, in Maryland. But she held off on releasing him over concerns that prosecutors can’t prevent ICE from deporting him.
Acting U.S. Attorney Rob McGuire told the judge he lacks jurisdiction over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, stating he has no way to prevent Abrego Garcia’s deportation.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have asked the judge to delay his release until a July 16 court hearing, which will consider a request by prosecutors to revoke Abrego Garcia’s release order while he awaits trial. Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty on June 13 to smuggling charges.
The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, did not respond directly to a question from The Associated Press on Friday regarding its plans for Abrego Garcia. A DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said in a statement that “he will never go free on American soil.”
When the Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia in March, it violated a U.S. immigration judge’s order in 2019 that barred his expulsion to his native country. The immigration judge had found that Abrego Garcia faced a credible threat from gangs that had terrorized him and his family.
The human smuggling charges pending against Abrego Garcia stem from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding in Tennessee, during which Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers without luggage.
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Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Trump’s Running Tab in the Abrego Garcia Case
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador, then brought back to the U.S. to face criminal charges it had started investigating after it had already sent him to a foreign prison. Now the administration is threatening to deport him again, this time to a country other than his native El Salvador. The administration is suggesting it may walk away from it all by sending him to Mexico, Guatemala, or another nation willing to take him. The case has produced nearly 57,000 pages of documents; ended the Department of Justice careers of one, perhaps two, prosecutors; and prompted the Trump administration to cut deals with convicted felons that protect them from deportation in exchange for testimony. The government’s lead investigator told the court that his primary cooperating witness is a twice-convicted felon who had been previously deported five times. “Sorry, Judge Holmes. Deported how many times?” she asked at a June 13 pretrial hearing in Tennessee, where the government is trying to convict him of human smuggling.
But with that criminal case off to a shaky start, the administration is threatening to deport Abrego Garcia again—this time to a country other than his native El Salvador—because the judge has ordered his release while the trial is pending. Having spent months trying to gather evidence against Abrego Garcia, the administration is suggesting it may walk away from it all by sending him to Mexico, Guatemala, or another nation willing to take him.
The threat of Abrego Garcia’s imminent re-deportation prompted his attorneys to take the extraordinary step today of asking a district court to delay their client’s release and keep him locked up for several more weeks to protect him from ICE. “The irony of this request is not lost on anyone,” his attorneys told the court. “In a just world, he would not seek to prolong his detention further.” The lawyers accused the government of pretending to want Abrego Garcia to face “American justice,” while really only wanting to “convict him in the court of public opinion.”
The head-spinning developments of the past several days add to the administration’s running tab in a case that has challenged its determination to admit no wrongdoing. The case has produced nearly 57,000 pages of documents; ended the Department of Justice careers of one, perhaps two, prosecutors; and prompted the Trump administration to cut deals with convicted felons that protect them from deportation in exchange for testimony.
Some of the most remarkable accommodations appear in the transcript of a June 13 pretrial hearing for Abrego Garcia in Tennessee, where the government is trying to convict him of human smuggling. Under cross-examination by defense attorneys, the government’s lead investigator, the Department of Homeland Security agent Peter Joseph, told the court that his primary cooperating witness—the source of the most damning testimony—is a twice-convicted felon who had been previously deported five times.
Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes, who was presiding over the hearing, did a double take. “Sorry. Deported how many times?” she asked.
Joseph, who confirmed the total, said the cooperator has been moved out of prison to a halfway house and is now awaiting a U.S. work permit. He told the court that a second cooperating witness is seeking similar inducements from the government.
Trump and his top officials have said for months that their mass-deportation campaign would prioritize the swift removal of criminals from the United States. But in its effort to punish Abrego Garcia—who does not have a criminal record—the administration is protecting convicted felons from deportation.
Other costs include ending the 15-year career of a Department of Justice attorney, Erez Reuveni, who filed a whistleblower claim with Congress this week alleging that he had been fired for refusing to go along with unsubstantiated claims, pushed by the White House, that Abrego Garcia is an MS-13 gang leader and a terrorist.
When Reuveni’s superiors told him to sign a legal brief making those claims, he refused, saying he “didn’t sign up to lie” when he became a federal prosecutor. He was suspended seven hours later and fired on April 11.
Reuveni’s career may not be the only DOJ casualty. Another federal prosecutor, Ben Schrader, the head of the criminal division at the U.S. attorney’s office in Nashville, submitted his resignation last month when the government brought Abrego Garcia there to face charges. Schrader, who declined to comment and has not discussed his departure publicly, wrote in a LinkedIn post that “the only job description I’ve ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons.”
As Reuveni and others have pointed out, ICE officials initially recognized that Abrego Garcia had been deported on March 15 due to an “administrative error.” His removal from the country was in violation of a 2019 order protecting him from being sent to El Salvador, which he fled at age 16, after a U.S. immigration judge found that he was likely to be attacked by gangs. At that point, the Trump administration could have brought Abrego Garcia back and deported him to another country, or reopened his case to try to strip him of his protected status. But Trump, Vice President J. D. Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi, the White House aide Stephen Miller, and other administration officials dug in and insisted there was no error. They declared that Abrego Garcia would never come back and never go free in the United States. They launched an all-of-government campaign to make the case about his character, not his due-process rights.
How the Trump administration flipped on Kilmar Abrego Garcia
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, told me in a statement that Abrego Garcia “is a terrorist illegal alien gang member.” Those who defend him “should take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves if they really want to side with this heinous illegal criminal,” she said, “simply because they dislike President Trump.”
“If the answer is yes, they need to seek help,” Jackson added. “The American people elected President Trump to hold criminals like Abrego Garcia accountable.”
But as attorneys for the Justice Department put it in a court filing Wednesday: “This is no typical case.”
Not one, but two, overlapping cases will determine Abrego Garcia’s fate. The first is the civil lawsuit that Abrego Garcia’s wife, a U.S. citizen, filed in district court in Maryland in March, which seeks his release.
The Trump administration opened a second case when it brought Abrego Garcia back from El Salvador earlier this month to face criminal charges in Tennessee. The charges stem from a 2022 highway stop in which Abrego Garcia was pulled over in a Chevrolet Suburban by officers who said he’d been driving 70 miles per hour in a 65-miles-per-hour zone. Police said there were nine passengers in the vehicle and no luggage, raising suspicions of smuggling. Abrego Garcia told officers that he was driving construction workers from St. Louis to Maryland on behalf of his boss.
The highway-patrol officers reported the incident to federal authorities, but Abrego Garcia was not charged and was allowed to continue the journey. Police-bodycam footage of the stop was obtained and released by the Trump administration as it called him a “human trafficker” and later alleged, citing unnamed cooperating witnesses, that Abrego Garcia transported thousands of migrants during smuggling trips across the United States as part of a conspiracy dating back to 2016 that earned him roughly $100,000 a year.
Joseph, the Homeland Security investigator, said cooperating witnesses told him more: that Abrego Garcia transported guns and narcotics, that he sexually abused younger female passengers in his care, and that he routinely endangered underage minors, including his own children, whom he left sitting without seat belts on the floor of the vehicle during lengthy trips from Texas to Maryland. The government made its claims to convince Judge Holmes that Abrego Garcia should remain in federal custody while awaiting his criminal trial.
Holmes was not swayed. The defense attorneys representing Abrego Garcia pointed out that the government was relying on stories transmitted through multiple levels of hearsay—claims made outside court, not under oath—by cooperating witnesses seeking some benefit from the government.
“You’ve got agents going to jails and prisons around the United States right now trying to talk to people who you think might know something about Mr. Abrego?” the federal public defender Dumaka Shabazz asked Joseph, the investigator.
“They have done it through the course of the investigation, yes, sir,” Joseph answered.
Shabazz told the court that the first cooperator, “despite all of his deportations, his criminal history, being the criminal mastermind behind a transport business,” was “chilling at the halfway house.”
“He’s not in jail. He’s not getting deported. He’s living his life right here in the United States of America. But he sounds like the exact type of person that this government should be wanting to deport.”
Holmes largely agreed, issuing a decision Sunday denying the government’s attempt to keep Abrego Garcia locked up. Her decision did not seem to bode well for the evidence and testimony the government is preparing against Abrego Garcia.
Holmes said she gave “little weight to this hearsay testimony” of the top cooperating witness, whom she called “a two-time, previously-deported felon, and acknowledged ringleader of a human smuggling operation.” Holmes wrote that she considered the hearsay statements of the second cooperator no more reliable.
Furthermore, she said the testimony and statements “defy common sense,” because she did not believe the claims that Abrego Garcia drove thousands of miles every week with his children—two of whom have autism—sitting on the floor.
Another federal judge in Tennessee decided on Wednesday that Abrego Garcia should not remain in criminal custody. District Court Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, who is overseeing the criminal case, said that the government had largely failed to prove he was a flight risk or a threat to the community.
The Trump administration made clear that as soon as Abrego Garcia was released, ICE could immediately take him back into custody. Then it played a new card, warning that ICE could try to deport Abrego Garcia before the criminal case goes to trial. By threatening to deport Abrego Garcia again, the government was pressuring his legal team and the judge to agree to his continued detention.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was never coming back. Then he did.
Crenshaw tried to shift responsibility from his courtroom back to the administration, saying that the Justice Department needed to convey its deportation concerns to DHS, which oversees ICE, not him. “If the Government finds this case to be as high priority as it argues here, it is incumbent upon it to ensure that Abrego is held accountable for the charges in the Indictment,” Crenshaw wrote. “If the Department of Justice and DHS cannot do so, that speaks for itself.”
Negotiations over where Abrego Garcia should go next ping-ponged through the courts yesterday, as his lawyers reacted to the administration saying one thing in court and other things in public.
At first, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys in Maryland asked the district court to have him transferred there while he awaits the Tennessee criminal trial. “Absent order from this Court, the Government will likely shuttle Abrego Garcia elsewhere,” they wrote.
The attorneys said the government’s public statements “leave little doubt about its plan: remove Abrego Garcia to El Salvador once more.” The last time the government detained Abrego Garcia for deportation, they noted, it sent him to detention facilities in Louisiana and Texas, a move they said was part of a “pattern” in which the administration sends detainees to those states in anticipation that the more conservative federal courts in that circuit are likelier to side with the government.
The administration’s position became even more muddled after a Justice Department attorney told the court in Maryland that the administration was indeed planning to deport Abrego Garcia if he’s released from custody but would send him to a country other than El Salvador. Abrego Garcia’s 2019 protections—the ones that the Trump administration violated—prevent his deportation only to El Salvador. The Trump administration has secured agreements with Guatemala, Honduras, and other countries around the region to take back deportees from other nations.
The rushed, blundering effort to send deportees to third countries
Jackson, the White House spokesperson, said on social media last night that the Department of Justice threat to deport Abrego Garcia was “fake news” and that the criminal case in Tennessee would go forward. “He will face the full force of the American justice system – including serving time in American prison for the crimes he’s committed,” Jackson wrote.
In response to the mixed messages and distrust of the government’s intentions, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers wrote today that they would rather keep him in jail than trust the administration not to deport him. “When Mr. Abrego revealed the weaknesses in that case—securing the pretrial release to which he is entitled—the government threatened to remove him to a third country,” they wrote.
Government attorneys said they intend to “see this case to resolution,” a message echoed by White House officials.
But if Abrego Garcia were poised to walk out of detention and reunite with his family as news cameras rolled, those involved know the administration could be tempted to do something drastic, even if it meant ditching their own case.
“Anything is possible,” an attorney who is tracking the case but did not want to be named told me. “It seems clear they are committed to not allowing him to be at liberty during the case.”
Source: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5411805-abrego-garcia-delay-jail-deportation/