The Trump administration plans to deport Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a third country before he can face trial in Tennessee if he is released from criminal custody, a Justice Department attorney said Monday.
During a federal court hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, DOJ attorney Jonathan Guynn told U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis that if Abrego Garcia is allowed to walk free before his criminal trial, Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not wait for the human smuggling charges against him to be resolved before initiating removal proceedings to a country other than El Salvador.
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“There’s no intention to just put him in limbo in ICE custody while we wait for the criminal case to unfold,” Guynn said. “He will be removed, as would any other illegal alien in that process.”
“You would not wait for the criminal case?” Xinis asked. “The Department of Homeland Security is removing people from this country very fast … are you going to take the same speed with Mr. Abrego?”
The hearing came as part of a civil lawsuit brought by Abrego Garcia and his wife, who is a U.S. citizen, after his deportation to El Salvador in March — a removal that violated a 2019 immigration judge’s order barring his deportation to his home country. He was returned to the United States weeks later after a grand jury secured charges on human smuggling allegations tied to a 2022 Tennessee traffic stop.
The revelation of the government’s intent to deport Abrego Garcia comes after the White House previously indicated he would first stand trial. While the DOJ maintains that position, lawyers for the government confirmed they will either attempt to undo the 2019 court order or remove him to a third country that has not yet been named.
The legal landscape shifted for the administration when the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration in a separate case involving eight convicted criminal illegal immigrants slated for deportation to south Sudan, a country of which none of them are citizens. That decision, which lifted limits on third-country removals, effectively gave the federal government broader discretion to remove illegal immigrants with or without final criminal convictions, as long as they are deemed removable under immigration law.
While Abrego Garcia has not been convicted, the Supreme Court’s south Sudan ruling nonetheless strengthened the administration’s argument that it can deport individuals such as him if they are in the U.S. illegally.
However, Xinis showed little patience with the differing plans for Abrego Garcia from the Department of Homeland Security and the DOJ. Likewise, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have shown inconsistency in their arguments before courts in Tennessee and Maryland. While his legal team initially pushed for his release, it more recently reversed course and sought to keep him in pretrial detention, citing fears that he would be deported before trial.
“It’s like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall, trying to figure out what’s going to happen next week,” Xinis said during the hearing.
EL SALVADOR’S BUKELE DENIES ABREGO GARCIA MISTREATMENT IN PRISON
She also denied one of the DOJ‘s motions to dismiss the civil case, calling it “meritless,” and criticized the government for failing to reconcile its changing legal posture with earlier sworn statements and public messaging.
Abrego Garcia remains in pretrial detention in Tennessee. A hearing is expected next week to determine whether he will be transferred to DHS custody. If so, he could be deported before his criminal case is heard.