CNN
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n The Trump administration will take steps to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia before he goes to trial in Tennessee if he\u2019s released from criminal custody, which could happen as soon as next week, a Justice Department attorney said Monday.\n <\/p>\n
\n The comments came during a wide-ranging court hearing in Maryland during which US District Judge Paula Xinis tried to pin down what the administration\u2019s plans are for Abrego Garcia, who was recently returned to the US to face charges of human smuggling after being wrongly deported to El Salvador in mid-March.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou would not wait for the criminal case?\u201d Xinis asked DOJ attorney Jonathan Guynn at one point. The Department of Homeland Security \u201cis removing people from this country very fast \u2026 are you going to take the same speed with Mr. Abrego?\u201d <\/strong>\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere\u2019s no intention to just put him in limbo in ICE custody while we wait for the criminal case to unfold,\u201d Guynn replied. \u201cHe will be removed, as would any other illegal alien in that process.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The latest indication from the Justice Department on its plans for Abrego Garcia, whose case has become a political football, come after weeks of top administration officials obstinately saying he would stand trial in the US following his indictment, while his defense attorneys have suspected and in multiple ways tried to stop a quick deportation.\n <\/p>\n \n Abrego Garcia is currently in pre-trial detention in Tennessee, but could be released from that court\u2019s authority and turned over to DHS as soon as July 16.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall trying to figure out what\u2019s going to happen next week,\u201d Xinis said at one point on Monday.\n <\/p>\n \n Xinis, of the federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, is overseeing a civil case brought by Abrego Garcia and his family after he was deported to El Salvador earlier this year in violation of a 2019 court order that barred his removal to that country. Attorneys for the administration said Monday that if he\u2019s released from criminal custody they will attempt to unwind that 2019 court order or remove him to a third country, though they didn\u2019t say what nation that could be.\n <\/p>\n \n The guarded responses from attorneys to the judge\u2019s questions on Monday appeared to underscore an apparent distrust she\u2019s had with the government\u2019s lawyers throughout the months-long case.\n <\/p>\n \n Xinis scheduled an evidentiary hearing for Thursday so she can get more concrete answers from a Trump administration official under oath about the government\u2019s plans.\n <\/p>\n \n The witness, she said, must be someone \u201cwith personal knowledge about defendants\u2019 next steps if Mr. Abrego is released from custody in the criminal case.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n If the individual\u2019s testimony \u201cis substantive and persuasive\u201d and shows that the government will respect Abrego Garcia\u2019s due process rights, Xinis said, she will avoid issuing an order sought by his attorneys that would bar the government from deporting him for now.\n <\/p>\n \n This story has been updated with additional details Monday.\n <\/p>\n \n CNN\u2019s Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 The Trump administration will take steps to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia before he goes to trial…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":46826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-46825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114813779843031171","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}