Left: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen who was living in Maryland and deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration, speaks in a hotel restaurant in San Salvador, El Salvador, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (Press Office Sen. Van Hollen, via AP). Right: President Donald Trump speaks with reporters upon arriving at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, N.J., Friday, June 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
A judge in Tennessee on Monday agreed to delay the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from federal custody as he faces migrant-smuggling charges in the Volunteer State after his lawyers cited the “perceived conflicting positions” they say are being taken by the Trump administration over whether it will once again deport the Maryland father.
Abrego Garcia”s lawyers had asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara D. Holmes on Friday to “delay the issuance of the release order” until a July 16 hearing, when arguments will be presented on a government motion for revocation of a prior release order that Holmes had granted.
The attorneys accused the Trump administration of making “contradictory statements” in regards to whether it intends to remove Abrego Garcia to a “third country” — nations with no ties to the person that’s being sent there — upon his return to DHS custody following his release in the Tennessee case. The DOJ didn’t take long to respond, writing it “does not oppose” a delay in the release order because it “intends to see this case to resolution,” but that DHS “will and must follow their own process.”
“The court has considered the basis for the motion, which is the perceived conflicting positions taken by the government regarding whether it will deport Abrego pending final disposition of this case including the further review by the District Judge of the government’s request for pretrial detention,” Holmes explained in a four-page order Monday. “Essentially, Abrego seeks the due process to which he is constitutionally and statutorily entitled, namely whether the government can make the necessary showing under the Bail Reform Act for his detention pending trial.”
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Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported in March to a notorious work prison in El Salvador without due process, has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges in Tennessee, with his attorneys calling the case against him a “farce.”
The 29-year-old was transported back to the U.S. on June 6 to face the new charges after the Trump administration claimed for months that the government had its hands tied and couldn’t do anything to get him back.
His attorneys accused Homeland Security and DOJ officials of defying a federal judge and the U.S. Supreme Court by refusing to provide any information regarding what was being done to “facilitate” his return.
A DOJ lawyer admitted in court that Abrego Garcia was wrongly deported due to an “administrative error,” but the government still took no immediate action. It wasn’t until a federal grand jury in Tennessee indicted Abrego Garcia last month that he was brought back.
Abrego Garcia’s indictment alleges that from 2016 to 2025, he “conspired to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere, ultimately passing through Mexico before crossing into Texas.” Abrego Garcia and several other alleged coconspirators are accused of transporting “thousands of undocumented aliens into the U.S., “many of whom” were allegedly members of the MS-13 gang. The charges are related to a traffic stop during which he was allegedly caught driving nine “Hispanic males” who lacked “identification” in his Chevrolet Suburban.
The government has argued that Abrego Garcia should remain in the custody of the federal prison system, claiming he is a flight risk and a danger to the community, and that he needs to be kept under supervision because ICE agents plan to deport him.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers recently presented a third option: a court order requiring him to be sent back to Maryland and barring ICE from taking him into custody.
Holmes said Monday that “because the government agrees to the short delay in issuance of a release order,” she didn’t see a problem with postponing things.
“Abrego Garcia shall therefore remain in the custody of the United States Marshal pending further order,” Holmes said. “He shall, to the extent practicable, be held separately from persons awaiting or serving sentences or being held in custody pending appeal and he shall be afforded a reasonable opportunity for private consultation with defense counsel.”
