By BEN FINLEY and TRAVIS LOLLER
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia asked a federal judge in Tennessee on Friday to delay his release from jail because of “contradictory statements” by President Donald Trump’s administration over whether or not he’ll be deported upon release.
A federal judge in Nashville has been preparing to release Abrego Garcia to await trial on human smuggling charges. But she’s been holding off over concerns that U.S. immigration officials would swiftly detain him and try to deport him again.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys are now asking the judge to continue to detain him following statements by Trump administration officials “because we cannot put any faith in any representation made on this issue by” the Justice Department.
“The irony of this request is not lost on anyone,” the attorneys wrote.
Abrego Garcia, a construction worker who had been living in Maryland, became a flashpoint over Trump’s hard-line immigration policies when he was mistakenly deported to his native El Salvador in March. Facing mounting pressure and a Supreme Court order, Trump’s Republican administration returned him this month to face the smuggling charges, which his attorneys have called “preposterous.”
Justice Department spokesman Chad Gilmartin told The Associated Press on Thursday that the department intends to try Abrego Garcia on the smuggling charges before it moves to deport him, stating that Abrego Garcia “has been charged with horrific crimes, including trafficking children, and will not walk free in our country again.”
Hours earlier, Justice Department attorney Jonathan Guynn 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. Guynn said there was no timeline for the deportation plans.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys wrote in their filing on Friday that Guynn’s statements were the “first time the government has represented, to anyone, that it intended not to deport Mr. Abrego back to El Salvador following a trial on these charges, but to deport him to a third country immediately.”
The filing by Abrego Garcia’s lawyers also cited a post on X on Thursday from White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson: “Abrego Garcia was returned to the United States to face trial for the egregious charges against him,” Jackson stated. “He will face the full force of the American justice system — including serving time in American prison for the crimes he’s committed.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys wrote Friday the Trump administration brought Abrego Garcia back “only to convict him in the court of public opinion.”
“In a just world, he would not seek to prolong his detention further,” his attorneys wrote. “And yet the government — a government that has, at all levels, told the American people that it is bringing Mr. Abrego back home to the United States to face ‘American justice’ — apparently has little interest in actually bringing this case to trial.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have asked the judge to delay his release until a July 16 court hearing, which will consider a request by prosecutors to revoke Abrego Garcia’s release order while he awaits trial.
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.
When the Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia in March, it violated a U.S. immigration judge’s order in 2019 that barred his expulsion to his native country. The immigration judge had found that Abrego Garcia faced a credible threat from gangs that had terrorized him and his family.
The human smuggling charges pending against Abrego Garcia stem from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding in Tennessee, during which Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers without luggage.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Nashville wrote in a ruling Sunday that federal prosecutors failed to show that Abrego Garcia was a flight risk or a danger to the community.
During a court hearing 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.
Finley reported from Norfolk, Va.