Lawyers for Abrego Garcia are pursuing a delay in his release from jail

Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s defense team has filed a request for postponing his pretrial release from federal custody in Tennessee. They argue that the Trump administration has issued “contradictory statements” regarding their intentions for him.

On Thursday, prosecutors indicated they would consider deporting Abrego Garcia to a country other than the U.S. or El Salvador if released. However, soon after, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson refuted the existence of such a plan, stating instead that the man from Maryland will “encounter the full extent of the American legal system.”

The dissonance between components of the Trump administration — namely the the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security — has confused many of the parties involved, from U.S. District Judge for Maryland Paula Xinis to Abrego Garcia’s own lawyers. On Friday, his attorneys noted the federal government’s apparent about-faces and cited them to plead for a delay in his release order to “prevent the government from removing Mr. Abrego and allow time for the government to provide reliable information concerning its intentions.”

The DOJ didn’t take long to respond, writing it “does not oppose” a delay in the release order because it “intends to see this case to resolution,” but that DHS “will and must follow their own process.”

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Abrego Garcia’s team had asked on Thursday for him to be returned to Maryland as soon as he was out on bond in the Tennessee case. But Trump administration actions since then have once again changed the outlook of Abrego Garcia’s status.

In their Friday filing in the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Tennessee — where Abrego Garcia has been accused of federal human smuggling charges in a case separate from the civil deportation and habeas corpus case in Maryland — his lawyers provided a timeline as a basis for their request.

“Yesterday, at an emergency hearing before Judge Xinis in the District of Maryland, the government represented that it intends to detain Mr. Abrego and remove him to a ‘third country’ as soon as this Court releases Mr. Abrego from pretrial custody,” the defendant’s lawyers wrote, noting Xinis, the presiding judge in Maryland, set a hearing on that motion for July 7.

“Hours later, the DOJ told the Associated Press the exact opposite: that it intends to try Mr. Abrego in this District before removing him to a third country,” they added, referencing the comment from Jackson — the White House spokeswoman — to the outlet.

The lawyers continued, at length:

Because DOJ has made directly contradictory statements on this issue in the last 18 hours, and because we cannot put any faith in any representation made on this issue by the DOJ, we respectfully request to delay the issuance of the release order until the July 16 hearing on the government’s motion for revocation. A short delay will prevent the government from removing Mr. Abrego and allow time for the government to provide reliable information concerning its intentions.

Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March in a move the Trump administration admitted was erroneous given a previous judge’s order that he not be expelled there, his country of birth, due to fear of persecution. However, the administration claimed it was powerless to secure his return — until earlier this month, when suddenly he was returned and indicted in Tennessee on federal smuggling charges.

Abrego Garcia and his camp have pledged his innocence and called the case a “sham.”

The administration has toggled back and forth over whether it wants him released before his trial, seeking a conclusion in his smuggling case but also arguing he has no place in this country — and that his deportation, while improper by landing in El Salvador, was overall the correct action.

Abrego Garcia’s team, naturally, sees things differently, and made sure to take a dig at the administration in its Friday filing.

“The irony of this request is not lost on anyone. After illegally removing Mr. Abrego to El Salvador, the government retrieved him, brought him to this District, and indicted him on baseless charges,” his lawyers wrote. “In a just world, he would not seek to prolong his detention further. And yet the government — a government that has, at all levels, told the American people that it is bringing Mr. Abrego back home to the United States to face ‘American justice’ — apparently has little interest in actually bringing this case to trial.”

“Instead, it has chosen to bring Mr. Abrego back only to convict him in the court of public opinion, including with respect to allegations found nowhere in the actual charges, while boldly announcing that Mr. Abrego ‘will not walk free in our country again,'” the man’s lawyers added, also casting doubt on prosecutors’ evidence obtained from what they see as an unreliable witness.

“The government has done so while allowing a cooperator with two felony convictions and five prior deportations to be released from a 30-month sentence for human smuggling to a halfway house, in order to build up a sham of a criminal case against Mr. Abrego. And when Mr. Abrego revealed the weaknesses in that case—securing the pretrial release to which he is entitled—the government threatened to remove him to a third country,” the lawyers wrote.