The Department of Justice on Wednesday moved to postpone all the deadlines in the Maryland deportation case of wrongly deported Salvadoran native Kilmar Abrego Garcia, due to the government shutdown.
An evidentiary hearing in the case had been scheduled for Monday.
“Absent an appropriation, Department of Justice attorneys and employees of the federal Defendants are prohibited from working, even on a voluntary basis, except in very limited circumstances, including “emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate said Wednesday in a court filing.
In the filing, the DOJ requested that if the motion for to stay the deadlines is granted, all current deadlines for the parties be extended “by the total number of days of the lapse in appropriations.”
The DOJ noted that Abrego Garcia “does not consent to the stay.”
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who had been living in Maryland with his wife and children, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution. The Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which his family and attorneys deny.
He was brought back to the U.S. in June to face human trafficking charges in Tennessee, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
After being released into the custody of his brother in Maryland pending trial, he was again detained by immigration authorities, who have sought to deport him.
He was moved last month from a Virginia facility to a detention center in Pennsylvania.
The post DOJ seeks to postpone deadlines in Abrego Garcia’s deportation case appeared first on ABC News.
