A federal judge on Monday agreed to allow Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia to remain in jail awaiting further proceedings on federal human smuggling charges in Tennessee, siding with a request from lawyers who have argued in separate but related proceedings for his release.
The decision highlights how Abrego Garcia’s attorneys wish to avoid deportation. Though a magistrate judge on June 22 found Garcia not to be a danger or flight risk, his defense counsel in Tennessee has asked the court to delay his release, citing “contradictory statements” from the Trump administration over whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement would remove him from the United States before a trial.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes granted the request Monday in a four-page filing, ordering Abrego Garcia to remain in U.S. Marshal custody “pending further order” and be held separately from convicted inmates “to the extent practicable.” A July 16 hearing is scheduled to reconsider the Trump administration’s arguments that he should not be released pending trial, complicating the matter further, as until recently, his attorneys sought his release from the Tennessee jail.
Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old construction worker who entered the United States illegally more than a decade ago, became the face of opposition to Trump’s immigration crackdown after he was mistakenly deported in March to his home country despite a 2019 order barring his removal to El Salvador due to threats from rival gangs. A judge in 2019 found there was sufficient evidence to support the claim that Abrego Garcia was a member of MS-13, and a separate judge later upheld that finding.
Amid public pressure for his return to the U.S. and a Supreme Court ruling that found the federal government should “facilitate” his return, Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S. and arrested in Tennessee on human smuggling charges. The charges stemmed primarily from a 2022 traffic stop, during which police said Abrego Garcia was found transporting nine passengers with no luggage, according to his indictment. Police found multiple cellphones and cash, and all the passengers said their destination was the same address as Abrego Garcia’s.
Justice Department spokesman Chad Gilmartin said last week that Abrego Garcia “has been charged with horrific crimes” and vowed he “will not walk free in our country again.” But DOJ lawyers also admitted in court that they can’t control ICE’s deportation timeline.
In a separate case related to Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. in Maryland federal court, the defendant’s attorneys have sought to bar ICE from deporting him to a third country and have also asked the judge to order his return to Maryland, where his family resides. This contradicts his defense counsel’s current request to remain in the Tennessee jail. Abrego Garcia is represented by two separate groups of lawyers in the pair of cases.
Meanwhile, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin has also said Abrego Garcia “will never go free on American soil.”
ABREGO GARCIA COULD BE DEPORTED ‘THIS WEEKEND,’ LAWYERS SAY
Abrego Garcia’s legal team has accused the Trump administration of trying to “convict him in the court of public opinion” and fear he’ll be deported to a “third country” before defending himself, according to court records.
“In a just world, he would not seek to prolong his detention further,” his attorneys wrote in a filing Friday.