(WASHINGTON) — A court hearing over the next steps for accused MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia resumes Thursday in Maryland.
Abrego Garcia, who was brought back to the U.S. from detention in El Salvador to face charges of human smuggling in Tennessee, is expected to be released on bond as he awaits trial.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis heard arguments from Abrego Garcia’s legal team, which is seeking to have their client transferred from Tennessee to Maryland.
Government attorneys say the administration’s plan, should Abrego Garcia be released on bond, is to deport him to a third country.
Judge Xinis on Monday ordered the government to produce witnesses with personal knowledge of what Abrego Garcia’s deportation plan would look like.
During Thursday’s hearing, government officials are expected to “address, among other topics, the asserted lawful bases for detention, the nature and timing of any notice to be provided to Abrego Garcia, the location of any proposed custody or transfer, and the procedural steps Defendants intend to pursue,” the judge wrote in her order.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native who had been living with his wife and children in Maryland, 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 — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which he denies.
He was brought back to the U.S. last month to face charges in Tennessee of allegedly transporting undocumented migrants within the U.S. while he was living in Maryland. He has pleaded not guilty.
Late Wednesday, Justice Department attorneys said in a court filing that they had sought to have the case dismissed by agreeing to not deport Abrego Garcia to El Salvador without first winning court approval and pledging to follow procedures before sending him to a third country — but that Abrego Garcia’s attorneys had rejected those terms.
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