Kilmar Abrego Garcia's team seeks no second deportation, Maryland return

Jeff Barker, The Baltimore Sun on Jul 11, 2025

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GREENBELT, Md. — The family of mistakenly-deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia sought again during a hearing Friday to return him to Maryland, as his attorneys hoped a judge would help prevent him from being quickly deported for a second time.

Trump administration officials have said they plan to send the sheet metal worker to a not-yet-identified “third country” — but not his native El Salvador, where he was sent in error in March — if he is freed from federal custody next week while awaiting trial in Tennessee on human smuggling-related charges.

Andrew Rossman, one of Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, told U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis on Monday that “we could be faced with the same set of circumstances that got us here in the first place: an illegal removal. The threat of removing Mr. Abrego again without due process is real.”

The Justice Department has said it would not deny Abrego Garcia his rights. “The removal of Abrego Garcia as challenged in the (wrongful deportation) complaint was an isolated mistake,” the department said in a recent brief.

Abrego Garcia, whose has family in Prince George’s County, was apprehended in March and sent to an El Salvdor prison. His detention came despite a legal protective order in 2019 to prevent his removal to El Salvador, where he has said gangs threatened him.. The administration has called the deportation an administrative error.

His deportation became a political flashpoint, as congressional Democrats seized on his case as an example of the Trump administration’s disregard for immigrants’ rights and willingness to buck federal court orders. The administration has called Abrego Garcia a gang member and human trafficker who should not be set free in the United States.

Abrego Garcia was held for months in two El Salvador prisons while the Trump administration said it had no authority to bring him back from the sovereign nation. He was flown to Tennessee in June to face the criminal charges.

He is accused in the federal indictment of being an MS-13 gang member who conspired “to bring undocumented aliens to the United States from countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Ecuador, and elsewhere.”

Abrego Garcia, who has pleaded not guilty, faces a hearing on Wednesday in Tennessee that could decide if he is release from pre-trial custody.

If he is released, Abrego Garcia would be detained — and it could be anywhere in the country — for as long as a few weeks before possibly being sent to a foreign country, U.S. immigration official Thomas Giles told the court on Thursday. Giles said the government “would need to find bed space for the individual, and we don’t know where that is.”

Sascha Rand, an attorney for Abrego Garcia, expressed skepticism on Thursday that the government has no specific plans for Abrego Garcia given that his case is so “high profile.”

The judge also seemed skeptical, saying Friday that there were no plans yet. “In this case? Really?” she said during the hearing.

Xinis had said Thursday that she would consider a temporary restraining order barring the government from deporting Abrego Garcia within the first 48 hours if he is released from criminal custody in Tennessee.

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