Kilmar Ábrego García

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    Court tosses Trump lawsuit against Maryland judges over US deportations

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    A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed an unprecedented lawsuit filed by the Trump administration earlier in the summer against all 15 judges serving on Maryland’s federal district court – a case that opposed pausing some deportations from the state.In a 37-page ruling, US district judge Thomas Cullen of Virginia’s western district – who was nominated and confirmed to his position during Donald Trump’s first presidency – wrote that “any fair reading of the legal authorities cited by defendants leads to the ineluctable conclusion that this court has no alternative but to dismiss”.“To hold otherwise,” Cullen added, “would run counter to overwhelming precedent, depart from longstanding constitutional tradition, and offend the rule of law.”The Trump administration had challenged an order issued by Maryland’s chief district judge that temporarily barred the government from deporting undocumented immigrants for two business days if they filed challenges to their detention. Trump’s justice department argued that the order exceeded the court’s authority and violated federal law.But Cullen, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020 and was assigned the case because all Maryland district judges were named as defendants, wrote that the judges were “absolutely immune” from lawsuits over their judicial actions. And Cullen said that instead of suing, the administration should have challenged the order though other legal channels, such as appealing against the order.“As much as the executive fights the characterization, a lawsuit by the executive branch of government against the judicial branch for the exercise of judicial power is not ordinary,” Cullen wrote.“In their wisdom, the constitution’s framers joined three coordinate branches to establish a single sovereign. That structure may occasionally engender clashes between two branches and encroachment by one branch on another’s authority. But mediating those disputes must occur in a manner that respects the judiciary’s constitutional role.”He added that if the administrations’s arguments “were made in the proper forum, they might well get some traction”. But he said that “as events over the past several months have revealed, these are not normal times – at least regarding the interplay between the executive and this coordinate branch of government”.It was “no surprise that the executive chose a different, and more confrontational, path entirely”, Cullen’s ruling said.“Instead of appealing any one of the affected … cases or filing a rules challenge with the judicial Council, the executive decided to sue – in a big way.”In a footnote, Cullen also criticized the Trump administration’s attacks on judges across the country throughout his second presidency, which began in January.“Over the past several months,” he said, Trump administration officials had described federal district judges around the country as “left-wing”, “liberal” “activists”, “radical”, “politically minded”, “rogue”, “unhinged”, “outrageous, overzealous, [and] unconstitutional”, “[c]rooked,” and worse.“Although some tension between the coordinate branches of government is a hallmark of our constitutional system, this concerted effort by the executive to smear and impugn individual judges who rule against it is both unprecedented and unfortunate,” Cullen wrote.Among the judges named in the lawsuit was US district judge Paula Xinis, who ruled in April that the Trump administration had unlawfully deported Kilmar Ábrego García to El Salvador and ordered the US to return him. More

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      The case against Kilmar Ábrego García is a study in sadistic absurdity | Moira Donegan

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      In a way, you could think of the brief stint that Kilmar Ábrego García spent in a Tennessee jail after his return from a Salvadorian prison camp in June as a kind of protective custody. Ábrego, a Maryland resident who had never been charged with any crime either in the US or in his native El Salvador, became a symbol of the Trump administration’s ambitiously sadistic anti-immigration efforts when he was kidnapped by Ice agents in March and sent without due process to Cecot, an enormous prison in El Salvador from which few detainees are ever released, as a result of what representatives for the Trump immigration authorities called an administrative error. Ábrego became a symbol for the several hundred men who had been deprived of their liberty and deported to the distant foreign prison without due process and in defiance of both American and international law.It was only after extensive public pressure on the issue – including visits to Cecot and demands to see Ábrego from prominent Democratic politicians, including Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland senator – that Ábrego was returned to the US. The Trump administration ginned up a fake, face-saving excuse for his return, claiming Ábrego needed to be tried for alleged crimes in the US. But that was never anything but a cover, a lie to avoid admitting that they were bringing him back under political pressure and that such pressure could make them cave again. Still, Maga does not forgive Ábrego for his innocence; its adherents decided to make an example of him. Now, released from jail on those trumped-up and unproven allegations, Ábrego has been arrested again by Ice. This time, the Trump administration says it plans to deport him to Uganda – a country he has never been to – as part of a new third-country deportation scheme recently blessed by the supreme court.The Trump administration has continued to pursue Ábrego, in spite of his obvious innocence, because they see the outcry over his accidental arrest and deportation as an unacceptably embarrassing stain on their anti-immigrant agenda. His arrest exposed the cruelty, randomness and essential malignant incompetence of Trump’s vast, unaccountable, reckless, violent and now extremely monied anti-immigrant armed corps: that they arrested an innocent man and deported him to potentially eternal exile and imprisonment in a country he had fled without notice, process, or legal authority left many Americans – and not only migrants – terrified of what might happen to their neighbors, their loved ones or themselves. The plain injustice of his case briefly served to unify anti-Trump forces, sway public sentiment against the crackdown and provoke an uncharacteristic degree of visible public action by elected Democrats. To the Trump administration, this could not stand. Now, they have set about punishing Ábrego for his role as proof of their own malignant idiocy.Without proof, and without much plausibility, Ábrego has been alleged by the Trump administration to be the author of various crimes and malfeasances. They admit that deporting him was a mistake but also want us to believe that he is the sort of person who should be deported – a human trafficker, in one fantasy; a gang leader, in another. That there is no proof for these allegations is beside the point: the point is that the Trump administration is claiming authority over reality itself, claiming the ability to decide what is true and what is false, and to reclassify every migrant – and in particular every Latino male – as a criminally dangerous threat that must be eliminated.Ábrego, then, must be guilty because the Trump administration arrested him, and because they can do no wrong. He must be guilty because he is a migrant, and innocence and immigration are mutually exclusive. He must be guilty, too, because his case made them do something that they did not want to do: admit a mistake, face public pressure, reverse an action, and – worst of all – show weakness. And he must be guilty because he has become a symbol of all the immigrants they plan to deport, all the Americans whose rights they plan to trample on, all the past and future victims of their program.Shortly after his rearrest by Ice on Monday, a judge ordered that the Trump administration not deport Ábrego to Uganda, as it planned. Because the Trump administration has willfully defied court orders in order to carry out deportations in the past, the judge who addressed the justice department lawyer representing the White House was explicit. “Your clients are absolutely forbidden from removing Mr Abrego from the United States,” she told them. “You understand this?” The government lawyer said he did, though this does not mean that the order will be followed.Ábrego now finds himself suffering the worst of a Kafkaesque absurdity, in which the law is arbitrary, malignant, unreliable, sadistic and totally divorced, in its rationale or result, from anything he has actually done. His predicament is not a little like that of Joseph K, the protagonist of The Trial, who finds himself arrested and imprisoned for a crime that is not revealed to him, and petitioning endlessly against the unfeeling representatives of a remote, cold and pitiless authority. He was selected for the Trump machine’s sadism at random, by the force of their own racist incompetence; it is still unclear whether he will ever manage to escape it.The injustice of Ábrego’s situation transcends his personal character – indeed, part of the absurdity is how indifferent the Trump administration is to what kind of man Ábrego might be. But from what we can see ourselves, he seems like a man capable of great moral feeling. On the steps of the courthouse on Monday, just moments before he headed inside to what was certain to be his re-arrest by Ice, Ábrego addressed a crowd of well-wishers in Spanish. “Regardless of what happens here today in my Ice check-in,” he said, “promise me this: that you will keep fighting, praying, believing in dignity and freedom. Not only for me – for everyone.”

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Judge halts Trump administration from deporting Kilmar Ábrego García for now

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      Kilmar Ábrego García – who has been thrust into the middle of an acrimonious deportation saga by the second Trump administration – has been detained after reporting to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents in Baltimore on Monday, but a judge later ruled that he cannot be deported for now.His detainment comes just three days after his release from criminal custody in Tennessee.“The only reason he was taken into detention was to punish him,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney representing Ábrego, told a crowd of supporters outside a Baltimore Ice field office on Monday. “To punish him for exercising his constitutional rights.”The attorney also said his client filed a new lawsuit on Monday morning challenging his potential deportation to Uganda and his current confinement. Hours later, US district judge Paula Xinis issued a temporary halt to Ábrego’s possible deportation.Xinis, who was appointed by former president Obama, told justice department lawyers that the government is “absolutely forbidden” from deporting Ábrego until she holds an evidentiary hearing scheduled for Friday.Xinis further instructed that Ábrego must remain at his detention center in Virginia. She then asked deputy assistant attorney general Drew Ensign whether her order was sufficient for the justice department to follow, which he agreed it was.“Your clients are absolutely forbidden at this juncture to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the continental United States,” Xinis told Ensign.The judge also raised concerns about accusations that the justice department attempted to pressure Ábrego by threatening deportation to Uganda if he did not plead guilty to human trafficking.Ábrego faced threats of being deported to Uganda after recently declining an offer to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for remaining in jail and pleading guilty to human smuggling charges, according to a Saturday court filing.“The fact that they are holding Costa Rica as a carrot and using Uganda as a stick to try to coerce him to plead guilty for a crime is such clear evidence that they are weaponizing the immigration system in a matter that is completely unconstitutional,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.The lawsuit Ábrego filed early on Monday asks for an order “that he is not allowed to be removed from the United States unless and until he has had full due process”, said Sandoval-Moshenberg.“The main issue, aside from the actual conditions in that country is – is that country actually going to let him stay there?” the attorney said. “They can offer to send him to Madrid, Spain, and unless Madrid, Spain, is going to let him remain in that country, essentially what it is – is a very inconvenient layover on the way to El Salvador, which is the one country that it has already determined that he cannot be sent to.”The Costa Rican government has agreed to offer Ábrego refugee status if he is sent there, court filings from Saturday show. A judge in 2019 ruled that Ábrego cannot be deported to El Salvador.Before walking into his appointment at the Baltimore Ice field office, Ábrego addressed a crowd of faith leaders, activists, and his family and legal team organized by the immigrant rights non-profit Casa de Maryland.“My name is Kilmar Ábrego García, and I want you to remember this – remember that I am free and I was able to be reunited with my family,” he said through a translator, NBC News reported. “This was a miracle … I want to thank each and every one of you who marched, lift your voices, never stop praying and continue to fight in my name.”After Ábrego entered the building, faith leaders and activists rallied to demand Ábrego’s freedom, chanting “Sí, se puede” (roughly “yes, we can”) and “we are Kilmar” as well as singing the hymn We Shall Not Be Moved with an activist choir.“Laws have to be rooted in love, because love does not harm us,” a senior priest at Maryland’s St Matthew Episcopal church identified as Padre Vidal said through a translator.Ábrego entered the US without permission in about 2011 as a teenager after fleeing gang violence. He was subsequently afforded a federal protection order against deportation to El Salvador.The 30-year-old sheet metal apprentice was initially deported by federal immigration officials in March. Though Donald Trump’s administration admitted that Ábrego’s deportation was an “administrative error”, officials have repeatedly accused him of being affiliated with the MS-13 gang, a claim Ábrego and his family vehemently deny.During his detention at El Salvador’s so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), Ábrego was physically and psychologically tortured, according to court documents filed by his lawyers in July.Following Ábrego’s wrongful deportation, the Trump administration faced widespread pressure to return him to the US, including from a supreme court order that directed federal officials to “facilitate” his return.In June, the Trump administration returned Ábrego from El Salvador, only to charge him with crimes related to human smuggling, which his lawyers have rejected as “preposterous”. His criminal trial is expected to begin in January.Ábrego’s detention comes amid growing concern about the Trump administration’s accelerating mass deportations campaign. Protesters across the US are rallying against the federal government’s crackdown on immigrants in Washington DC, the nation’s capital, while activists in Maryland and nationwide are pushing Democratic officials to end contracts with Avelo Airlines, which is the only passenger airline that conducts deportation flights for Ice.Shortly after Ábrego’s detention on Monday, the US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said on social media that Ice had arrested him and was “processing him for deportation”.“President Trump is not going to allow this illegal alien, who is an MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator to terrorize American citizens any longer,” she wrote.Glenn Ivey, the Democratic congressman representing the Maryland district where Ábrego and his family live, said his constituent’s detention was a “total abuse of power” by the federal government and a tactic to save them from “being embarrassed” due to a lack of evidence to find him guilty in court.Ábrego’s mistreatment has become a flashpoint political issue within the district and beyond, Ivey said.“I think if they [the administration] are waiting for people to forget about it or get tired of it, they’ve gotten a big surprise on that front,” Ivey said.

      Shrai Popat contributed reporting More

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      Who is Kilmar Ábrego García and why has his case become a lightning rod for Trump’s immigration crackdown?

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      The Trump administration has said it plans to deport Kilmar Ábrego García to Uganda, months after he was mistakenly sent to El Salvador, in a case that has become a flashpoint in the president’s wider crackdown on immigration.In a filing, lawyers for Ábrego asked the courts to dismiss the case against him on grounds that it is a vindictive attempt to punish him for challenging his initial deportation to El Salvador.The attempt to deport Garcia to far-flung Uganda – a country he has no known connection to – adds a new twist to a saga that become a lightning rod for Trump’s harsh crackdown on illegal immigration, which has seen rightwing supporters praise the president’s toughness but legal scholars and human rights advocates blast what they say is a haphazard rush to deport people without even a court hearing, in violation of basic US law.Who is Kilmar Ábrego García?Kilmar Ábrego García, 30, grew up in El Salvador and fled at age 16 because a local gang extorted and terrorised his family, court records state. He travelled to Maryland, where his brother lives as a US citizen, but was not authorised to stay.Ábrego found work in construction and met his future wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura. In 2018, he moved in with her and her two children after she became pregnant with his child.In March 2019, Ábrego went to a Home Depot seeking work as a labourer when he was detained by local police, court records state.The records say a criminal informant told police Ábrego was a member of MS-13, an international criminal gang, but police did not charge him and turned him over to the US immigration and customs enforcement (Ice).View image in fullscreenÁbrego, through his attorneys, has denied any affiliation with MS-13. He has no criminal record in either the US or El Salvador.A US immigration judge denied Ábrego’s asylum claim because more than a year had passed since his arrival, but the judge granted him protection from being deported to El Salvador, determining he had a “well-founded fear” of gang persecution there, court records state.Abrego was released and placed under federal supervision. He received a federal work permit and checked in with Ice each year, his lawyers said.Why has he become internationally renowned?In February, the Trump administration designated MS-13 as a foreign terrorist organisation. In March, it deported Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador, violating the US immigration judge’s 2019 order.Ábrego later claimed in court documents that he was beaten and psychologically tortured in the El Salvador prison. The country’s president, Nayib Bukele, denied these allegations.The Trump administration later admitted it had mistakenly sent him to El Salvador’s notorious maximum security prison, but Donald Trump and other officials doubled down on claims that Ábrego was in MS-13.The US supreme court later ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” the return of Ábrego. He was returned in June, and then quickly arrested and charged with trafficking undocumented migrants.That case stems from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding, during which Ábrego was driving with nine passengers. Tennessee police suspected human smuggling, but allowed him to drive on and didn’t charge him.Ábrego pleaded not guilty and his lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case based on “vindictive and selective prosecution”.At that point he had not seen his family in more than 160 days.Why is he being threatened with deportation to Uganda?A US magistrate ruled in June that Ábrego had a right to be released from jail while he awaited trial, but he remained in a Tennessee jail at his attorneys’ request for about 11 weeks over fears that Ice would immediately try to deport him.Thomas Giles, an assistant director for Ice, testified in July that Ábrego would be detained as soon as he was freed.In response to concerns Ábrego would be deported without due process, a US district Judge prohibited Ice from immediately detaining him upon release in Tennessee.Soon after this order, Ábrego’s attorneys asked a federal judge in Tennessee to release him.View image in fullscreenHe was released on Friday and required to stay with his brother in Maryland and be subjected to electronic monitoring and home detention. In a statement on Friday, he said he saw his family for the first time in more than five months.Before he was released, government officials made him a plea offer: remain in custody, plead guilty to human smuggling charges and be deported to Costa Rica, his lawyers said in a filing. He declined the offer.After Ábrego left jail, Ice told his attorneys he would be deported to Uganda and should report to immigration authorities on Monday.Later Friday, the government told Ábrego he had until first thing Monday to accept a plea in exchange for deportation to Costa Rica – where he will reportedly be treated as a refugee and not jailed – or else that offer would be off the table, his defence attorneys wrote.The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said the administration would not stop fighting until he was out of the US.With Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press More

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      US immigration officials intend to deport Kilmar Ábrego García to Uganda

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      US immigration officials said they intend to deport Kilmar Ábrego García to Uganda, after he declined an offer to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for remaining in jail and pleading guilty to human smuggling charges, according to a Saturday court filing.The Costa Rica offer came late on Thursday, after it was clear that the Salvadorian national would probably be released from a Tennessee jail the following day.Ábrego declined to extend his stay in jail and was released on Friday to await trial in Maryland with his family. Later that day, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notified his attorneys that he would be deported to Uganda and should report to immigration authorities on Monday.According to official documents posted online, the DHS told Ábrego’s attorneys on Friday afternoon that the “DHS may remove your client … to Uganda no earlier than 72 hours from now (absent weekends)”.Immigration and Customs Enforcement also directed Ábrego to report to its Baltimore office on Monday, according to records posted online.Ábrego entered the US without permission in about 2011 as a teenager after fleeing gang violence. He was subsequently afforded a federal protection order against deportation to El Salvador.The 30-year-old was initially deported by federal immigration officials in March. Though the Trump administration admitted that Ábrego’s deportation was an “administrative error”, officials have repeatedly accused him of being affiliated with the MS-13 gang, a claim Ábrego and his family vehemently deny.During his detention at El Salvador’s so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), Ábrego was physically and psychologically tortured, according to court documents filed by his lawyers in July.Following Ábrego’s wrongful deportation, the Trump administration faced widespread pressure to return him to the US, including from a supreme court order that directed federal officials to “facilitate” his return.In June, the Trump administration returned Ábrego from El Salvador, only to charge him with crimes related to human smuggling, which his lawyers have rejected as “preposterous”. His criminal trial is expected to begin in January.Before his deportation, Ábrego had lived in Maryland for more than a decade, working in construction while being married to an American wife.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAlthough Ábrego was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed. Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case in Maryland, which requires immigration officials to allow Ábrego time to mount a defense.Separately, in a statement earlier this week, Uganda said that it agreed to a “temporary agreement” with the US to accept some asylum seekers who are deported from the country.Bagiire Vincent Waiswa, permanent secretary of Uganda’s foreign ministry, said: “The agreement is in respect of third country nationals who may not be granted asylum in the United States but are reluctant to or may have concerns about returning to their countries of origin.”Waiswa added: “This is a temporary arrangement with conditions including that individuals with criminal records and unaccompanied minors will not be accepted. Uganda also prefers that individuals from African countries shall be the ones transferred to Uganda. The two parties are working out the detailed modalities on how the agreement shall be implemented.” More

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      El Salvador’s president denies that Kilmar Ábrego García was abused in notorious prison

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      The president of El Salvador has denied claims that Kilmar Ábrego García was subjected to beatings and deprivation while he was held in the country before being returned to the US to face human-smuggling charges.Nayib Bukele said in a social media post that Ábrego García, the Salvadorian national who was wrongly extradited from the US to El Salvador in March before being returned in June, “wasn’t tortured, nor did he lose weight”.Bukele showed pictures and video of Ábrego García in a detention cell, adding: “If he’d been tortured, sleep-deprived, and starved, why does he look so well in every picture?”Ábrego García’s lawyers said last week that he had suffered “severe beatings”, sleep deprivation, malnutrition and other forms of torture while he was held in El Salvador’s notorious anti-terrorism prison, Cecot.Ábrego García said detainees at Cecot “were confined to metal bunks with no mattresses in an overcrowded cell with no windows, bright lights that remained on 24 hours a day and minimal access to sanitation”.His lawyers say he lost 31 pounds during his first two weeks of confinement.They said that, at one point, Ábrego García and four other inmates were transferred to a different part of the prison, “where they were photographed with mattresses and better food – photos that appeared to be staged to document improved conditions”.Bukele made no reference to whether the photos he showed to claim Ábrego García wasn’t mistreated were taken in a nicer part of the prison.Bukele recently struck a deal under which the US will pay about $6m for El Salvador to imprison members of what the US administration claims are members of MS-13 and Tren de Aragua, two gangs, for a year. According to Maryland senator Chris van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador to meet with Ábrego García while he was detained there, the Trump administration intends to provide up to $15m to El Salvador for the controversial detention service.Bukele’s remarks came as the Tennessee judge in Ábrego García’s human-smuggling complaint ordered both sides to stop making public statements, after Ábrego García’s legal team accused the government of attempting to smear him without evidence as a “monster”, “terrorist” and “barbarian”.Lawyers for Ábrego García argued in a court filing that the government had violated a local rule barring comments that could be prejudicial to a fair trial.“For months, the government has made extensive and inflammatory extrajudicial comments about Mr Ábrego that are likely to prejudice his right to a fair trial,” Ábrego García’s lawyers said in a filing.“These comments continued unabated – if anything they ramped up – since his indictment in this district, making clear the government’s intent to engage in a ‘trial by newspaper’.”The US district judge Waverly Crenshaw issued the gag order in a two-sentence ruling.Ábrego García’s legal team has accused the government of trying to convict him in the court of public opinion since it acknowledged that it had mistakenly sent him to a prison in El Salvador despite a court order barring the move.“As Mr Ábrego’s plight captured national attention, officials occupying the highest positions of the United States government baselessly labeled him a ‘gangbanger’, ‘monster’, ‘illegal predator’, ‘illegal alien terrorist’, ‘wife beater’, ‘barbarian’ and ‘human trafficker,’” the filing said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe attorneys singled out the vice-president, JD Vance, who they said had lied when he called Ábrego García a “convicted MS-13 gang member”.They also said that Trump administration officials had made 20 more public statements about their client when he was arraigned, including in remarks by the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, and the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche.They also said the attorney general, Pam Bondi, accused their client of crimes he hadn’t been accused of, including links to a murder case. In sum, the statements had asserted Ábrego García’s guilt “without regard to the judicial process or the presumption of innocence”, the filing said.According to the documents filed on Wednesday, officials within the prison acknowledged that Ábrego García was not a gang member, and that his tattoos did not indicate a gang affiliation.“Prison officials explicitly acknowledged that plaintiff Ábrego García’s tattoos were not gang-related, telling him ‘your tattoos are fine’,” according to the filing, and they kept him in a cell separate from those accused of gang membership.The prison officials, however, threatened to move Ábrego García into a cell with gang members whom officials said “would ‘tear’ him apart”.Separately, US prosecutors have agreed with a request by Ábrego García’s lawyers to delay his release from Tennessee jail over fears that the Trump administration could move to deport the Salvadorian national a second time.In a filing on Friday, lawyers for Ábrego García asked the judge overseeing a federal complaint that he was involved in human smuggling to delay his release because of “contradictory statements” by the Trump’s administration over whether he’ll be deported upon release.The justice department has said it plans to try the Maryland construction worker on the smuggling charges, but also that it plans to deport him but has not said when. 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      Kilmar Ábrego García was tortured in Salvadorian prison, court filing alleges

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      Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and detained in one of that country’s most notorious prisons, was physically and psychologically tortured during the three months he spent in Salvadorian custody, according to new court documents filed Wednesday.While being held at the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) in El Salvador, Ábrego García and 20 other men “were forced to kneel from approximately 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM”, according to the court papers filed by his lawyers in the federal district court in Maryland.Guards struck anyone who fell from exhaustion while kneeling, and during that time, “Ábrego García was denied bathroom access and soiled himself”, according to the filing.Detainees were held in an overcrowded cell with no windows, and bright lights on 24 hours a day. They were confined to metal bunk beds with no mattresses.Ábrego García’s testimony is one of the first detailed insights the world has into the conditions inside Cecot, a megaprison that human rights groups say is designed to disappear people.His lawyers say he lost 31 pounds during his first two weeks of confinement. Later, they write, he and four others were transferred to a different part of the prison “where they were photographed with mattresses and better food–photos that appeared to be staged to document improved conditions”.The filings also note that officials within the prison acknowledged that Ábrego García was not a gang member, and that his tattoos did not indicate a gang affiliation. “Prison officials explicitly acknowledged that plaintiff Ábrego García’s tattoos were not gang-related, telling him ‘your tattoos are fine,’” per the filing, and they kept him in a cell separate from those accused of gang membership.The prison officials, however, threatened to move Ábrego García into a cell with gang members whom officials said “would ‘tear’ him apart”.Ábrego García is currently in federal custody in Nashville. The Trump administration brought him back from El Salvador after initially claiming it was powerless to do so. The US justice department wants him to stand trial on human-smuggling charges. The administration has also accused him of being a member of the street gang MS-13, and Donald Trump has claimed that Ábrego García’s tattoos indicate that he belonged to the gang.Ábrego García has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which his attorneys have characterized as an attempt to justify the administration’s mistake in deporting him after the fact.On Sunday , a Tennessee judge ordered his release while his criminal case plays out, but prosecutors said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) would take Ábrego García into custody if that were to happen and he would be deported before he was given the chance to stand trial.A justice department lawyer, Jonathan Guynn, also told a federal judge in Maryland that the administration would deport Ábrego García not to El Salvador but to another, third country – contradicting statements from attorney general Pam Bondi that he would be sent to El Salvador.Amid the confusion, Ábrego García’s lawyers requested that their client remain in criminal custody, fearing that if he were released, he would be deported. Upcoming hearings in both Maryland and Tennessee will help decide whether Ábrego García will be able to remain in the US and be released from jail. More

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      Judge orders release of Kilmar Ábrego García as he awaits federal trial

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      A Tennessee judge on Sunday ordered the release of Kilmar Ábrego García, whose mistaken deportation has become a flashpoint in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, while he awaits a federal trial on human smuggling charges. But he is not expected to be allowed to go free.At his 13 June detention hearing, prosecutors said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) would take Ábrego García into custody if he were released on the criminal charges, and he could be deported before he has a chance to stand trial.US magistrate judge Barbara Holmes has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to discuss the conditions of Ábrego García’s release. The US government has already filed a motion to appeal the judge’s release order.Holmes acknowledged in her ruling on Sunday that determining whether Ábrego García should be released is “little more than an academic exercise” because Ice will probably detain him. But the judge wrote that everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence and “a full and fair determination of whether he must remain in federal custody pending trial”.Holmes wrote that the government failed to prove that Ábrego García was a flight risk, that he posed a danger to the community or that he would interfere with proceedings if released.“Overall, the Court cannot find from the evidence presented that Ábrego’s release clearly and convincingly poses an irremediable danger to other persons or to the community,” the judge wrote.Ábrego García has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges that his attorneys have characterized as an attempt to justify the deportation mistake after the fact.The acting US attorney for the middle district of Tennessee, Rob McGuire, argued on 13 June that the likely attempt by Ice to try to deport him was one reason to keep him in jail.But Holmes said then that she had no intention of “getting in the middle of any Ice hold”.“If I elect to release Mr Ábrego, I will impose conditions of release, and the US Marshal will release him.” If he is released into Ice custody, that is “above my pay grade”, she said.The judge suggested that the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security could work out between themselves whether the government’s priority is to try him on the criminal charges or deport him. No date has been set for the trial.Will Allensworth, an assistant federal public defender representing Ábrego García at the detention hearing, told Holmes that “it’s not necessarily accurate that he would be immediately deported.”A 2019 immigration judge’s order prevents Ábrego García, who had been living in Maryland, from being deported to his home country of El Salvador, Allensworth said in court. That’s because he faces a credible threat from gangs there, according to court papers.The government could deport him to a third country, but immigration officials would first be required to show that third country was willing to keep him and not simply deport him back to El Salvador, Allensworth said.The smuggling charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding in Tennessee during which Ábrego García was driving a vehicle with nine passengers. Although officers suspected possible smuggling, he was allowed to go on his way with only a warning. He has pleaded not guilty.At the detention hearing, McGuire said cooperating witnesses have accused Ábrego García of trafficking drugs and firearms and of abusing the women he transported, among other claims. Although he is not charged with such crimes, McGuire said they showed Ábrego García to be a dangerous person who should remain in jail pretrial.Ábrego García’s attorneys have characterized the smuggling case as a desperate attempt to justify the mistaken deportation. The investigation was launched weeks after the US government deported Ábrego García and the supreme court ordered the administration to facilitate his return amid mounting public pressure.The US is now expected to try to deport him again with much of the world watching and the outcome hard to predict.Most people in Ice custody who are facing criminal charges are not kept in the US for trial but deported, César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, an Ohio State University law professor, said.The US will probably try to deport Ábrego García quickly without going before an immigration judge, the professor said. The government would not need a conviction to deport him because Ábrego García came to the US illegally.“The legal standard is laxer,” García Hernández said. “The government’s argument is on stronger legal footing.”However an immigration judge rules, the decision can be appealed to the board of immigration appeals, García Hernández said. And the board’s ruling can then be contested in a federal appeals court. More

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      Kilmar Ábrego García returned from El Salvador to face criminal charges in US

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      Kilmar Ábrego García, the man whom the Donald Trump administration mistakenly deported from Maryland to El Salvador in March, returned to the US on Friday to face criminal charges.In a press briefing on Friday, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said that a federal grand jury in Tennessee had indicted the 29-year-old father on counts of illegally smuggling undocumented people as well as of conspiracy to commit that crime.“Our government presented El Salvador with an arrest warrant and they agreed to return him to our country,” Bondi said of Ábrego García. She thanked Salvadorian president, Nayib Bukele, “for agreeing to return him to our country to face these very serious charges”.“This is what American justice looks like upon completion of his sentence,” Bondi added.In a statement to the Hill on Friday, Ábrego García’s lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg accused the Trump administration of having “disappeared” his client “to a foreign prison in violation of a court order”.“Now, after months of delay and secrecy, they’re bringing him back, not to correct their error but to prosecute him,” he added.Sandoval-Moshenberg also said: “This shows that they were playing games with the court all along. Due process means the chance to defend yourself before you’re punished – not after.”Sandoval-Moshenberg said the White House’s treatment of his client was “an abuse of power, not justice”. He called on Ábrego García to face the same immigration judge who had previously granted him a federal protection order against deportation to El Salvador “to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent” there.That, Sandoval-Moshenberg argued, “is the ordinary manner of doing things” – and he said that is what the US supreme court had ordered in April.Bondi on Friday maintained that federal grand jurors found that Ábrego García “has played a significant role” in an abusive smuggling ring that had operated for nearly a decade.The attorney general added that if convicted, Ábrego García would be deported to El Salvador after completing his sentence in the US.Ábrego García entered the US without permission in about 2011 while fleeing gang violence in El Salvador.Despite the judicial order meant to prevent his deportation to El Salvador, on 15 March, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials deported him to El Salvador after arresting him in Maryland.He was held in the so-called Center for Terrorism Confinement, a controversial mega-prison better known as Cecot.The Trump administration subsequently admitted that Ábrego García’s deportation was an “administrative error”. But it has repeatedly cast him as a MS-13 gang member on television – a claim which his wife, a US citizen, and his attorneys staunchly reject.Ábrego García also had no criminal record in the US before the indictment announced on Friday, according to court documents.On 4 April, federal judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate and effectuate” Ábrego García’s return from El Salvador after his family filed a lawsuit in response to his deportation.The supreme court unanimously upheld Xinis’s order a week later. In an unsigned decision, the court said that Xinis’s decision “properly requires the government to ‘facilitate’ Ábrego García’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador”. More