Washington — Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia asked a federal judge overseeing his criminal case to put off his release from custody for 30 days if the judge rejects a Justice Department bid to keep him in confinement while awaiting a trial.
Abrego Garcica’s lawyers said in a filing that the 30-day pause in issuing a release order would give him time to evaluate his legal options in response to likely efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to deport him.
“We have been advised by the government that if the court denies the government’s motion for revocation, the defendant would be transferred to the custody of the Department of Homeland Security (‘DHS’), and DHS would begin removal proceedings,” they wrote.
The Justice Department does not object to the request, and Abrego Garcia’s legal team said that the delay would not affect their ability to come up with a proposed schedule leading up to his criminal trial.
A federal grand jury in Tennessee indicted Abrego Garcia in late May on two counts of human smuggling. He has pleaded not guilty to both counts. A trial in his case is set to begin in January.
Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, but his removal gained headlines after a federal immigration official acknowledged it was an administrative error. An immigration judge had granted Abrego Garcia a withholding of removal in 2019, which prevented DHS from deporting him to his home country of El Salvador because he was likely to face persecution by local gangs.
Abrego Garcia, who has lived in Maryland after coming to the U.S. illegally in 2011, and his wife filed a civil lawsuit against the Trump administration in March challenging his removal, and a federal judge in Maryland ordered the government to facilitate his return to the U.S.
After weeks of back-and-forth — and his case reaching the Supreme Court — Attorney General Pam Bondi announced in early June that Abrego Garcia had been released from Salvadoran custody and brought back to the U.S. to face criminal charges stemming from his alleged participation in a scheme to smuggle undocumented migrants into the country.
A federal magistrate judge last month ordered Abrego Garcia’s release from federal law enforcement custody while he awaits a trial, but that raised concerns that he would be swiftly detained by immigration agents and possibly deported. The Justice Department appealed that decision and asked a U.S. district judge to revoke the release order.
The judge overseeing the criminal case, Waverly Crenshaw, held a hearing last week on the government’s motion but has not yet ruled on whether to grant it. If Crenshaw denies the bid, it would give the green-light for Abrego Garcia to be released from criminal custody.
But the prospect that Abrego Garcia would then swiftly be detained by the Department of Homeland Security for removal proceedings has created a new tangle for the courts to unravel. He has remained in the custody of U.S. Marshals as the legal proceedings have continued.
In the ongoing civil case in Maryland, the federal judge is considering a separate request from Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to return him to Maryland immediately after he is released from confinement in the criminal proceedings that are ongoing in Tennessee. They also asked the judge to bar the Trump administration from removing Abrego Garcia from the U.S.
The judge in Maryland has not yet ruled on Abrego Garcia’s requests.
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