The Justice Department said Thursday that it intends to try Kilmar Abrego Garcia on federal smuggling charges in Tennessee before it moves to deport him to a country that is not his native El Salvador.
“This defendant has been charged with horrific crimes, including trafficking children, and will not walk free in our country again,” DOJ spokesperson Chad Gilmartin told The Associated Press.
Gilmartin made the statement hours after a federal prosecutor told a federal judge in Maryland that the U.S. government plans to deport Abrego Garcia to a “third country” that isn't El Salvador. But Justice Department attorney Jonathan Guynn said there was no timeline for the deportation plans.
Guynn acknowledged the government’s plans during a hastily planned conference call with Abrego Garcia’s attorneys and U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt, Maryland. Abrego Garcia's lawyers had filed an emergency request for Xinis to order the government to take Abrego Garcia to Maryland when he is released in Tennessee, an arrangement that would prevent his deportation before he stands trial.
“We have concerns that the government may try to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia quickly over the weekend, something like that,” one of his attorneys, Jonathan Cooper, told Xinis on the call.
Prosecutor says ‘there's no timeline’
Xinis, however, said she could not move as quickly as Abrego Garcia's attorneys would like. She said she had to consider the Trump administration's pending motions to dismiss the case before she could rule on the emergency request. The judge scheduled a July 7 court hearing in Maryland to discuss the emergency request and other matters.
It was unclear whether the government would seek to deport Abrego Garcia before he stands trial in the U.S. on criminal charges unsealed earlier this month.
Guynn told the judge during Thursday's call that “there’s no timeline.”
“We do plan to comply with the orders we’ve received from this court and other courts,” he said. "But there’s no timeline for these specific proceedings.”
Deporting Abrego Garcia before his trial would be a reversal for an administration that brought him back from El Salvador just weeks ago to face human smuggling charges, with Attorney General Pam Bondi saying: “This is what American justice looks like.”
Abrego Garcia, a Maryland construction worker, became a flashpoint over Trump's immigration policies after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March. He's been in jail in Tennessee since he was returned to the U.S. on June 7 to face the human smuggling charges.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville, Tennessee, has ruled that Abrego Garcia has a right to be released while awaiting trial. But she decided Wednesday to keep him in custody for at least a few more days over concerns that U.S. immigration officials would swiftly try to deport him again.
Abrego Garcia's attorneys in Maryland, where his wife is suing Trump's Republican administration over his March deportation, offered up a solution when they asked Xinis to direct the government to take him to Maryland while he awaits trial. Xinis has been overseeing the lawsuit in her Greenbelt court.
“If this Court does not act swiftly, then the Government is likely to whisk Abrego Garcia away to some place far from Maryland,” Abrego Garcia's attorneys wrote in their request to Xinis.
Abrego Garcia lived in Maryland, just outside Washington, with his American wife and children for more than a decade. His deportation violated a U.S. immigration judge's order in 2019 that barred his expulsion to his native country. The judge had found that Abrego Garcia faced a credible threat from gangs who had terrorized him and his family.
The Trump administration described its violation of the immigration judge’s 2019 order as an administrative error. Trump and other officials doubled down on claims Abrego Garcia was in the MS-13 gang, an accusation that Abrego Garcia denies.
Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty on June 13 to smuggling charges that his attorneys have characterized as an attempt to justify his mistaken expulsion to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Those charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding in Tennessee, during which Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers without luggage.
Holmes, the magistrate judge in Tennessee, wrote in a ruling on Sunday that federal prosecutors failed to show that Abrego Garcia was a flight risk or a danger to the community.
During a court hearing on Wednesday, Holmes set specific conditions for Abrego Garcia's release that included him living with his brother, a U.S. citizen, in Maryland. But she held off on releasing him over concerns that prosecutors can't prevent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from deporting him.
Holmes ordered Abrego Garcia’s lawyers and prosecutors to file briefs on the matter on Thursday and Friday respectively.
U.S. has to pull diplomatic levers
César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, an Ohio State University law professor, said the Trump administration would be “fully within its legal power to attempt to remove him to some other country.”
“The Trump administration would have to pull its diplomatic levers,” the professor added. “It’s unusual. But it’s not unheard of.”
Abrego Garcia also could contest the criminal allegations and attempts to remove him in immigration court while demonstrating his ties to the U.S., García Hernández said.
Whatever decision an immigration judge would make, it can be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, García Hernández said. And the board’s ruling can then be contested in a federal appeals court.
Ben Finley, The Associated Press
