As lawyers work out ways to stop a Salvadoran national from being deported from the country a second time, he will remain in jail for the time being.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was scheduled to be freed from pre-trial custody on Wednesday without posting bail. He is being detained in Nashville, Tennessee, on suspicion of human trafficking.
He was a flight risk because the president’s administration had pressed for his release.
However, US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw upheld a magistrate judge’s earlier ruling that Abrego Garcia was free to walk free.
However, in an unexpected turn, both sides’ attorneys claimed that if Abrego Garcia were released, he could face a second deportation under the control of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Abrego Garcia would lose the opportunity to fight back against the accusations, which he has refuted. Additionally, the government’s attorneys claimed that the government’s criminal prosecution would also pursue him.
In a written decision, Judge Crenshaw stated that the government’s decision to deport Abrego Garcia sounded like a case of the executive branch acting in “injury on itself.”
The Department of Justice will be denied the opportunity to pursue its criminal charges against Abrego, according to Crenshaw.
However, he continued, “The Executive Branch’s decision places the Government in this predicament.”
In the end, it was decided that Abrego Garcia would remain in custody while attorneys fought over whether he could be freed while awaiting trial.
A well-known case
To listen to the proceedings through a Spanish interpreter, Abrego Garcia donned an orange jail-issued T-shirt and a headset to the hearing on Wednesday.
The Trump administration and Abrego Garcia are currently arguing whether or not he would be permitted to remain in the US.
Abrego Garcia reportedly fled El Salvador as a teenager to avoid gang violence before immigrating to the US in 2011. He and his American wife are raising three children in Maryland where they have lived for more than ten years.
A judge ruled in his favor in the US in February 2019 and gave him a protection order.
However, Abrego Garcia was enthralled on March 15 as a result of President Trump’s massive deportation campaign.
He and more than 200 other Venezuelans and Salvadoris were deported to El Salvador after being charged with gang activity.
The Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, a maximum-security facility for those accused of terrorism, housed many of the men. However, deported immigrants’ advocates claim that many of their clients were pursuing legal immigration status in the US despite having no criminal records.
Advocates have also pointed out that some deported people have been denied legal protection by ICE, and that they occasionally act as if they were arrested solely based on their tattoos.
However, the Trump administration attempted to halt its presence in the US by labeling Latin American gangs like , MS-13, and Tren de Aragua as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
Following the deportation flights to El Salvador, there were a number of legal issues. The government acknowledged that Abrego Garcia’s removal had been the result of an “administrative error” in his case.
However, the Trump administration initially argued that even after the Supreme Court in April gave the government the go-ahead to “facilitate” his return, he could not be brought back to the United States.
a resumption of US service
That changed on June 7 when Abrego Garcia was brought back to the US. When confronting him with allegations that he was a smuggler inside the US, the Trump administration justified his return.
A 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding led to those accusations. One of the police officers remarked on the arrest and said Abrego Garcia may be a smuggler in a video recording of the stop. At the time, however, no criminal charges were brought.
The Trump administration made it clear that it had requested a criminal indictment in May of this year when it announced Abrego Garcia’s return to the US this month.
Homeland Security’s special agent Peter Joseph testified at the recent detention hearings that he hadn’t started an investigation on Abrego Garcia until April.
On June 13, Abrego Garcia entered a not-guilty plea for smuggling charges, which his attorneys argued were an attempt to defend his mistaken deportation.
Abrego Garcia’s criminal trial is scheduled to begin on Sunday, according to US Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes’ ruling on Sunday.
Given that Abrego Garcia was likely to be taken back into custody by ICE if released, she said that decision was “little more than an academic exercise.”
The topic of Wednesday’s hearing was how to stop Abrego Garcia from being deported once more.
Sean Hecker, an Abrego Garcia attorney, noted that anyone who interacted with the Trump administration was at risk of being deported.
Hecker claimed that the government has cooperated with witnesses to prevent deportation.
Hecker questioned why the government couldn’t protect those witnesses from being removed.
Acting US Attorney Rob McGuire was in the court for the government’s case at the time. He claimed that he had little control over the actions of each individual entity because the executive branch of the government was so large.
He continued, saying he would ask the Department of Homeland Security for their assistance in preventing the deportation of Abrego Garcia.
According to McGuire, “That’s a distinct organization with distinct leadership and directions.” “I’ll coordinate, but I can’t tell them what to do.”
Jennifer Vasquez Sura, Abrego Garcia’s wife, stated at a press conference that 106 days had passed since her husband had been “abducted” by the government. She demanded his quick return.
