The Salvadoran man at the center of a high-profile deportation and human smuggling case under the Trump administration, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, is asking a federal judge in Maryland to intervene and block Immigration and Customs Enforcement from removing him from the United States while his criminal trial proceeds.
In an eight-page emergency motion filed Thursday, attorneys for Abrego Garcia urged U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis to order his return to Maryland from Tennessee, where he has been jailed, and to prohibit ICE from transferring or deporting him once he is released from criminal custody.
Abrego Garcia mounts bid to return to Maryland
“If this Court does not act swiftly, then the Government is likely to whisk Abrego Garcia away to some place far from Maryland,” the attorneys wrote, claiming that ICE intends to deport Abrego Garcia, a suspected member of MS-13, to El Salvador a second time despite a standing 2019 order prohibiting his removal to his home country over his fears of being targeted by a rival gang.
The request comes as legal tensions tighten between the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. of Tennessee ruled that Abrego Garcia could be released with conditions as he awaits trial on federal smuggling charges. He set a July 16 hearing to review the government’s bid to reverse a magistrate judge’s June 22 order that found Abrego Garcia could not be jailed pending his criminal trial on human smuggling charges tied to a December 2022 traffic stop.
But the judge also acknowledged he would likely be taken into ICE custody immediately, possibly creating a standoff between the two agencies.
Meanwhile, a recent Supreme Court decision this week allows the Trump administration to deport illegal and criminal migrants to third countries, or places not of their origin, giving the government more bandwidth to avoid violating the 2019 withholding of removal order to El Salvador if it chooses to deport Abrego Garcia a second time.
DOJ says it can’t control DHS plans for Abrego Garcia
Acting U.S. Attorney Rob McGuire, whose office is prosecuting the case, said at the Wednesday hearing that his team is seeking to coordinate with ICE. “I can’t tell them what to do,” McGuire said, noting DHS may still prioritize Abrego Garcia’s deportation despite the DOJ’s interest in proceeding with trial. Prosecutors are also pursuing an appeal of U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes’s weekend decision to release Abrego Garcia while he awaits trial.
Abrego Garcia, 29, was deported by the Trump administration this spring after two courts found he was affiliated with the violent MS-13 gang. But he was returned to the U.S. after the Supreme Court ruled the removal had violated due process because of the 2019 order barring his deportation to El Salvador. The justices ordered the government to treat the case as if the deportation there had never occurred.
Upon return, Abrego Garcia was arrested in Tennessee in relation to the 2022 traffic stop that prosecutors say revealed signs of a smuggling operation. Police found a list of passengers, cellphones, and cash, and the eight people packed into the car Abrego Garcia was driving all provided the same Prince George’s County, Maryland, address, which was Abrego Garcia’s address, as their own.
Although the Tennessee court ruled Abrego Garcia did not need to remain in custody while awaiting trial, his civil attorneys say ICE intends to transfer him to a facility outside Maryland, possibly in Texas or Louisiana, as a prelude to deportation. They are asking Xinis to order his immediate return to Maryland and keep him there while litigation continues.
“To preserve and protect this Court’s jurisdiction and proceedings… the Court should order the Government to return Abrego Garcia to the District of Maryland,” his legal team wrote.
Government makes pitch to dodge sanctions
Separately, the government on Wednesday asked Xinis to reject a request from Abrego Garcia’s attorneys for sanctions, arguing the case is now moot because he was returned to the U.S. and that federal agencies complied with expedited discovery orders in good faith.
The DOJ argued in part of a 32-page motion that it had reviewed more than 56,000 pages of material across DHS, ICE, DOJ, and the State Department to meet the court’s timeline.
“Any delay in compliance … was not done in bad faith but, rather, as a result of various steps and layers of review that were unavoidably time-consuming,” the government wrote in its bid to avoid the sanctions.
Xinis is weighing a host of requests from both parties in the case, including a pending request by the government to dismiss the case in Maryland in light of Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. earlier this month.
ICE DETENTION LOOMS AS JUDGE URGES DOJ AND DHS TO COORDINATE IN ABREGO GARCIA CASE
“The relief sought by the Complaint—Mr. Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States—has been satisfied,” the government said, framing the case as moot.
As litigation plays out, Xinis has scheduled a public hearing for Thursday at 1:00 p.m. ET to discuss the pending motions. For now, Abrego Garcia remains in a Tennessee jail.
