Abrego Garcia lawyers again ask for delay in release from jail, citing deportation threat

Mistakenly deported man Kilmar Abrego Garcia is asking a Tennessee-based federal judge to delay any ruling to release him by 30 days as his legal team seeks clarity on the Trump administration's plans to deport him.

Attorneys for Abrego Garcia said the delay was needed “given the uncertainty of the outcome of any removal proceedings.”

The Department of Justice has not objected to the request.

Abrego Garcia spent weeks imprisoned in El Salvador after being deported due to an administrative error despite a 2019 order from an immigration judge barring him from being returned to his home country.

Attorneys for the Justice Department said if Abrego Garcia were to be released, he would be picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Though Abrego Garcia cannot be deported to El Salvador, he could be sent to another country that agrees to take him, and the Trump administration has sought such arrangements with countries such as South Sudan.

Abrego Garcia is fighting in two courts to bar his deportation, including the Maryland federal court where his family first sought his return from a Salvadoran prison.

It’s unusual for those facing charges to fight their release from prison — a sign of the uncertainty facing Abrego Garcia as the Justice Department argues they have little control or insight into how immigration authorities would handle his case.

Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S. as the Trump administration announced they would bring human trafficking charges against the man stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee where he was seen driving other men without luggage.

A ruling is expected shortly in Maryland, where Judge Paula Xinis has been asked to bar the Trump administration from deporting Abrego Garcia.

In an attempt to stave off Xinis from taking any action, government attorneys agreed to abide by certain procedures before deporting him to a third country.  

But Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said those guarantees don’t alleviate their concerns.

“It leaves open the critical question of whether my client will receive effective notice and an opportunity to be heard in a court before he is removed to an as-yet unidentified third country,” attorney Jonathan Cooper said at a hearing in Xinis’s court room earlier this month.