Judge will consider Abrego Garcia’s request to try to avoid deportation before his trial
By BEN FINLEY and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — 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.