GREENBELT, Md.
– A federal judge on Thursday will consider
Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s
request
to be sent to Maryland
to await trial on human smuggling charges, a bid aimed at preventing the Trump administration
from trying to deport him
again.
Abrego Garcia could be released
as soon as next week
from a jail in Tennessee. He is being held in connection with 2022 traffic stop for speeding in the state during which he was driving a vehicle with nine passengers without luggage. A U.S. Justice Department attorney has said immigration officials would detain Abrego Garcia and
initiate deportation proceedings
, possibly denying him the chance to defend himself at trial.
Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint over Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration policies when the Salvadoran national was
wrongfully deported to his native country in March
. Facing mounting pressure and
a U.S. Supreme Court order
, the administration
returned him last month
to face the smuggling charges.
But federal prosecutor Jonathan Guynn told U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland on Monday that the government
plans to deport
Abrego Garcia to a country other than El Salvador.
That is why Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have asked Xinis to order the U.S. government to bring him to Maryland to await his trial. Abrego Garcia lived and worked in the state for more than a decade before he was deported. The construction worker’s American wife and children live in Maryland, as does his brother, who is now a U.S. citizen.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers say the smuggling charges
are preposterous
and an attempt by the administration to justify his erroneous deportation.
They argue the administration
brought Abrego Garcia back only “to convict him in the court of public opinion.”
Abrego Garcia
has pleaded not guilty
to the smuggling charges. His lawyers have told a federal judge in Tennessee that some government witnesses cooperated to get favors regarding their immigration status or criminal charges they were facing.
A federal judge in Nashville, Tennessee, was preparing to release Abrego Garcia, determining he was not a flight risk or a danger. But the judge has
agreed to keep Abrego Garcia behind bars
at the request of his legal team over deportation concerns.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have asked that judge to delay his release until a July 16 court hearing in Nashville to consider a request by prosecutors to revoke Abrego Garcia’s release order while he awaits trial.
Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia’s wife
is suing the administration
over his deportation in March to El Salvador and is trying to prevent him from being expelled again. Her lawsuit is being handled by Xinis, the judge in Maryland.
Xinis has scheduled Thursday’s 1 p.m. EDT hearing in Greenbelt to discuss the proposal by Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to order the U.S. government to bring him to Maryland to await trial.
Guynn, the Justice Department attorney,
told Xinis Monday
that she did not have the jurisdiction to decide where Abrego Garcia would be detained.
Xinis
responded by asking why she could not order an “interim step” to ensure that Abrego Garcia isn’t “spirited away again.”
When the administration deported Abrego Garcia in March, it violated a U.S.
immigration judge’s order
in 2019 that shielded Abrego Garcia from being sent to his native country. The immigration judge had determined that Abrego Garcia likely faced persecution by local gangs that had terrorized him and his family.
The
administration claimed
that it deported Abrego Garcia because was in the MS-13 gang, although Abrego Garcia wasn’t charged and has repeatedly denied the allegation.
Abrego Garcia was sent to a
notorious megaprison in El Salvador
, where he
says he was beaten
and subjected to psychological torture. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has
denied the allegations
.
