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Inset: Kilmar Abrego Garcia in an undated photo (CASA). Background: President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the Oval Office at the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo/Alex Brandon).
Attorneys representing Kilmar Abrego Garcia have requested that a federal judge facilitate his return to Maryland when he is released on bond from his criminal case in Tennessee.
And they want the court to keep the government”s hands off him entirely to ensure that he makes his way back home.
In an emergency motion spanning eight pages filed on Thursday morning, his legal team urged U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, appointed by Barack Obama, to prohibit Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from re-detaining their client.
“When his custody in the Tennessee criminal case ends, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia should return here, to the District of Maryland, where his civil litigation began and remains,” the motion begins.
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The request from the Maryland father’s side comes amid a conflict within the Trump administration itself – in which federal agencies appear to be at loggerheads over what to do with Abrego Garcia now that he has been returned to the United States.
In the Volunteer State, Abrego Garcia was indicted on two counts related to an alleged human smuggling conspiracy. The charges are related to a traffic stop during which he was allegedly caught driving nine “Hispanic males” who lacked “identification” in his Chevrolet Suburban, according to the 10-page indictment filed in late May.
Both judges working on that criminal case – which Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have characterized as “pure farce” – recently rejected the government’s overtures about the necessity of pretrial detention.
But the government, for its part, has made two separate arguments about why Abrego Garcia should remain in the custody of the federal prison system – which is overseen by the U.S. Department of Justice.
First, the government claimed the man who became the national face of opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown was a flight risk or a danger to the community. Then, after that argument failed, DOJ attorneys said they needed to keep Abrego Garcia under their supervision because ICE agents were waiting in the wings – with designs to immediately deport him to El Salvador.
Now, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have seized the opportunity created by the apparent discord within the federal government to propose a third option: a court order requiring him to be sent him back to Maryland and barring ICE from taking him into custody.
“The Government has stated that once Abrego Garcia is released from criminal custody, it will take him into immigration custody and again try to remove him to El Salvador, where it illegally removed him over three months ago,” the latest motion reads. “Plaintiffs therefore move under the All Writs Act and the Court’s inherent equitable authority for an order directing the Government to (1) return Abrego Garcia to the District of Maryland immediately upon his release from confinement in the criminal proceedings ongoing in the Middle District of Tennessee, and (2) refrain from removing Abrego Garcia from the continental United States or transferring him outside this District (other than to travel to Tennessee to participate in the criminal proceedings) absent further order of this Court.”
To hear the man’s lawyers tell it, he faces dire straits as soon as Friday.
“If this Court does not act swiftly, then the Government is likely to whisk Abrego Garcia away to some place far from Maryland,” the motion goes on.
While the latest filing aims to put the metaphorical ball in Xinis’ literal court, the Tennessee district court has suggested the government could easily solve the issue.
Last week, the magistrate judge issued a scathing order that took issue with many of the government’s claims about the facts in the case.
On Wednesday, the district judge – who is assisted by the magistrate – said the notion of ICE and DOJ competing for detention beggars belief.
“Underlying this case is an obvious truism that must not be forgotten: the Executive Branch is in control of where Defendant Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia awaits trial in this case,” U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw wrote in a 16-page memorandum opinion. “This is true because the Executive Branch can elect whether to hold him for pending deportation proceedings or not. This seems overlooked.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys in his Maryland civil case insist their requested relief – if granted by Xinis – would have essentially no effect on his Tennessee criminal case.
From the emergency motion, at length:
This motion does not ask this Court to adjudicate Abrego Garcia’s custodial status in the Tennessee criminal proceedings; that is for the Tennessee district court to resolve. Nor does this motion seek to alter any of the conditions of release set by the Tennessee district court or otherwise interfere with the Tennessee criminal proceedings. This motion simply seeks to ensure that when Abrego Garcia is released from criminal custody, he returns to, and remains in, this District (other than to travel to Tennessee as needed), until further order from this Court.
In arguing for his return to Maryland, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys say the court would benefit by retaining jurisdiction – and that this is what the U.S. Supreme Court suggested in its order mandating his return to the country.
Further seizing on the government’s latest filing in Tennessee, the motion also says a return to Maryland would benefit the immigration case against him as well – turning the Trump administration’s arguments on themselves.
“Plaintiffs’ requested relief benefits the Government,” the motion argues. “In the Tennessee criminal proceedings, the Government represented that it would suffer ‘substantial and irreparable harm’ if ICE deports Abrego Garcia and that ‘[t]his would be irreparable harm to the public’ too.”
