El Salvador native Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the target of numerous deportation efforts by the Trump administration, cannot be deported until at least early October, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, at a hearing on Wednesday, extended an Aug. 25 order that blocked his deportation while courts consider his renewed asylum claims. Later that day, she issued a brief order, clarifying that Abrego Garcia must remain within 200 miles of the courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Abrego Garcia had filed suit, alleging that the government was planning to deport him to Uganda.
Xinis has scheduled a hearing for Oct. 6, and said she will try to issue a ruling within the subsequent 30 days.
Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant, previously applied for asylum in 2019 but was denied. However, the judge in that case ruled that he could not be deported to El Salvador, since there was concern that he faced a “clear probability of future persecution” in his native country.
He has lived in the country since age 16, is married to an American citizen, and was a construction worker. The government stated that Abrego Garcia is a member of the transnational criminal gang MS-13, which he denied.
He was set to be deported earlier this year, but was sent to El Salvador’s maximum security prison Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT), along with a plane full of other deportees.
A district judge in Maryland ordered his return in April while the Trump administration said the Salvadoran was no longer under U.S. jurisdiction.
Abrego Garcia’s case drew public attention, and he gained support from some members of Congress who pressured the administration for his return.
Following a Supreme Court order on April 10, he was eventually returned to the United States and held in custody in Tennessee on charges of smuggling illegal immigrants into the country.
Authorities freed Abrego Garcia last week to await trial at home. His attorneys said that before he was released, the government offered to deport him to Costa Rica, where he would be a free man if he pleaded guilty to the human smuggling charges. After he refused, according to his lawyers, the government said he could be deported to Uganda.
Abrego Garcia was again detained after checking in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Aug. 25, and is asking the judge to reconsider his asylum case, according to his lawyers.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the administration will eventually deport him.
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