The Justice Department said Thursday it intends to try Kilmar Abrego Garcia on human smuggling charges in Tennessee before it moves to deport him again.
DOJ spokesman Chad Gilmartin told the Associated Press that Abrego Garcia will first be tried in court on the charges, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
“This defendant has been charged with horrific crimes, including trafficking children, and will not walk free in our country again,” Gilmartin said.
A federal prosecutor told a federal judge earlier in the day that the Trump administration will deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a country other than his native El Salvador if he is released from jail in Tennessee, where he is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service.
“Our plan is, he will be taken into ICE custody, and removal proceedings will be initiated,” Jonathan Guynn, an attorney with the DOJ’s Civil Division, said during a hearing in a federal court in Maryland where Garcia is challenging his previous deportation.
Guynn did not give a timeline for the deportation but told U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis that the plans to deport Abrego Garcia are not imminent and the federal government will comply with all court orders.
“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.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys filed an emergency motion Thursday asking the judge to order his return to Maryland in order to prevent deportation when he is released from jail and awaits trail in Tennessee.
“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.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes, a federal judge in Nashville, previously ruled that Abrego Garcia has a right to be released while awaiting trial but continued to detain him rather than try to override the federal government’s immigration enforcement.
“I have no reservations about my ability to direct the local U.S. attorney’s office,” the judge said. “I don’t think I have any authority over Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
The Maryland construction worker was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March but was returned to the U.S. on June 7 following the Supreme Court’s order in April requiring the Trump administration to facilitate his return. The administration has claimed he is part of the MS-13 gang, which Abrego Garcia denies. His deportation to El Salvador violated a 2019 order by an immigration judge that says he faces a threat from gangs there.