NEED TO KNOW
The Trump administration is planning to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia once again if he is released from prison before he stands trial on existing criminal charges, a Justice Department attorney told a U.S. district judge on Monday.
The Maryland father of three has been at the center of the president’s crackdown on illegal immigration since March, when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador. He was returned to the U.S. last month and immediately imprisoned on human smuggling charges in Tennessee, which his lawyers have called “preposterous.”
Currently, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis is presiding over a civil case in Maryland, in which Abrego Garcia’s family is suing the Trump administration for his initial deportation, which violated an order of protection that said Abrego Garcia couldn’t be sent to his native El Salvador due to safety concerns.
Xinis’ immediate concern, she said, was what could happen to Abrego Garcia when he is released from pre-trial detention, which could happen as soon as next week.
“[The Department of Homeland Security] is removing people from this country very fast … are you going to take the same speed with Mr. Abrego?” she asked DOJ attorney Jonathan Guynn on Monday, per CNN.
“There’s no intention to just put him in limbo in ICE custody while we wait for the criminal case to unfold,” Guynn answered. “He will be removed, as would any other illegal alien in that process.”
Administration officials had previously said that they would not deport Abrego Garcia before the smuggling trial, with White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson promising that he “will face the full force of the American justice system — including serving time in American prison for the crimes he’s committed.”
Maansi Srivastava/ For The Washington Post via Getty
However, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have fought to keep him in custody, fearing that the administration would change course and push for a swift deportation if he was freed.
“It’s like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall trying to figure out what’s going to happen next week,” Xinis said, per CNN.
Guynn indicated that Abrego Garcia could be removed to a “third” country other than El Salvador, but did not offer any details on when and where he might be sent.
Xinis scheduled an evidentiary hearing for Thursday, July 10, in which the Trump administration must present a witness “with personal knowledge about defendants’ next steps if Mr. Abrego is released from custody in the criminal case.”
Abrego Garcia’s story has become a sore point for the Trump administration, particularly after Trump mistakenly claimed that the deported father of three had “MS-13” tattooed on his knuckles in a major interview with ABC News. In actuality, he has four symbols: a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a cross and a skull. The photo Trump was reviewing had the letters and numbers digitally added to explain the alleged gang reference.
Abrego Garcia was first stopped by immigration agents on March 12, and his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, previously told CBS Mornings that she only realized that he had been deported when she recognized him in a photo of detainees in the prison.
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After being stopped by ICE, Abrego Garcia was detained in Texas. He was falsely told that “his immigration status had changed,” according to court documents filed on March 31.
Although Abrego Garcia entered the U.S. without proper documentation as a teenager in 2011, multiple outlets have reported that he was granted a protected status “based on concerns that he could be persecuted by gangs” if he were to return to El Salvador. Reuters reported that he has had a work permit in the U.S. since 2019.
