The Trump administration may attempt to deport Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a third country as early as this weekend, according to concerns raised by the defendant’s attorneys on Thursday during an emergency court call.
Justice Department attorney Jonathan Guynn told U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland that the government intends to remove Abrego Garcia to a “third country” rather than back to his native El Salvador if the Trump administration moves ahead with swift removal efforts. However, Guynn said the Department of Homeland Security has “no imminent plans” and that the government would follow all court orders.
Still, the issue came up as Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Jonathan Cooper, told Xinis about his general concerns that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers may detain Abrego Garcia, after a judge on Wednesday said the illegal migrant could be released from jail pending his trial on criminal trafficking charges in Tennessee.
“We have concerns that the government may try to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia quickly over the weekend, something like that,” Cooper said.
Xinis, who is overseeing a civil lawsuit filed by Abrego Garcia’s wife and has at times stretched her powers in favor of the plaintiffs, said she could not immediately grant the emergency request to send Abrego Garcia to Maryland. She scheduled a hearing for July 7 to weigh the request and the Trump administration’s pending motion to dismiss the case.
Abrego Garcia’s case became a national flashpoint over immigration enforcement after he was deported to El Salvador in March despite an immigration judge’s ruling in 2019 that barred his removal to El Salvador due to gang threats. His attorneys argue that the deportation violated this order and endangered his life by sending him back to gang-controlled territory in his home country.
While the federal government contended it made an administrative error by sending him back to El Salvador and not a separate or neighboring country, the Supreme Court has given the Trump administration a window to deport Abrego Garcia somewhere other than El Salvador after it allowed authorities to deport eight criminals to south Sudan in a separate case, despite none of those illegal immigrants originating in south Sudan.
After weeks of defense attorneys fighting in court for Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States, the Trump administration brought him back on June 7 to face federal human smuggling charges. The charges stem from a 2022 Tennessee traffic stop, when prosecutors say Abrego Garcia was found driving eight other passengers with no luggage, which police presumed to be a human trafficking operation. He pleaded not guilty on June 13.
Earlier this week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville ruled Abrego Garcia could be released while awaiting trial. U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. upheld her decision in a Wednesday hearing. However, prosecutors warned the court that they would have no control over the DHS if it moved to deport Abrego Garcia.
“I don’t think I have any authority over ICE,” Holmes said Wednesday.
Acting U.S. Attorney Rob McGuire added that while he would coordinate with ICE, “that’s a separate agency with separate leadership and separate directions.”
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers proposed that he be transferred to Maryland to live with his U.S. citizen brother while awaiting trial, noting that his wife and children reside there and that deporting him again would violate his right to due process.
KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA SEEKS TO BAR ICE DEPORTATION AND RETURN TO MARYLAND
“If this Court does not act swiftly,” Abrego Garcia’s attorneys wrote, “then the Government is likely to whisk Abrego Garcia away to some place far from Maryland.”
The civil lawsuit over his deportation is pending in Xinis’s court. She noted Thursday that she has two other matters before her to decide, including the government’s motion to dismiss the case as moot and an effort by Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to impose sanctions on the government for slow-walking discovery filings in the case.
