A migrant from El Salvador who is accused of being an MS-13 member has been deported to a terror prison, brought back to the U.S., threatened to be deported to Uganda, but will remain in the U.S. for now.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia tearfully pleaded his case in Spanish at a press conference Monday before he reported to the Baltimore field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He had been released from Putnam County Jail in Tennessee on Friday before the Trump administration notified him of his possible deportation.
Garcia has been indicted for allegedly transporting people in the U.S. who were not legally in the country, but he has denied the allegations.
Just hours after he was detained again, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ruled that the administration could not deport him before an evidentiary hearing.
“Your clients are absolutely forbidden at this juncture to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the continental United States,” the judge said to the government’s attorneys. “That is the understanding that we have?”
“Your honor, yes,” responded Drew Ensign, a Justice Department attorney. “We certainly understand that.”
Garcia has been indicted for allegedly transporting people in the U.S. who were not legally in the country, but he has denied the allegations. His attorney said the government offered to deport him to Costa Rica if he pleaded guilty to two counts of smuggling, but would deport him to Uganda if he refused the offer.
Ensign added that removals to a third country take time and that Garcia’s deportation was not “imminent.”
Garcia had called it a miracle that he was reunited with his family.
“This was a miracle. Thank you to God, and thank you to the community,” he said, as translated from Spanish. “I want to thank each and every one of you who marched, lift your voices, never stop praying, and continue to fight in my name.”
The Trump administration has vowed not to let Garcia walk free in the U.S.
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a dangerous criminal illegal alien. We have said it for months and it remains true to this day: he will never go free on American soil,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in June.
Judge Xinis was nominated to the court by former President Barack Obama.
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