A protester holds a photo of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia as demonstrators gather to protest against the deportation of immigrants to El Salvador outside the Permanent Mission of El Salvador to the United Nations in New York City on April 24, 2025. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

GREENBELT, Maryland — U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis seemed inclined during a Friday hearing to grant a temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration from deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia if he is released from pretrial detention next week.

Xinis said if she granted a temporary restraining order, it would be narrow and would prevent immigration officers from deporting Abrego Garcia from the U.S. It would also keep the longtime Maryland resident at a detention center near Maryland as the immigration lawsuit about the conditions of his deportation under a final order of removal proceeds.

She also upbraided Justice Department attorneys for claiming immigration officials had a detainer on Abrego Garcia, but not producing the document.

The attorneys for Abrego Garcia’s case in Maryland, which was brought after the longtime resident was unlawfully arrested by immigration officials and mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March, are asking Xinis for a 72-hour restraining order if he is released from pretrial detention Wednesday.

Abrego Garcia awaits federal trial in Tennessee on criminal charges lodged while he was mistakenly removed to El Salvador.

The restraining order, if granted, would prevent the Trump administration from removing Abrego Garcia to a third country without proper notice and an opportunity to challenge his removal.

“The concern that we have here is that he’ll be gone in a blink and never to be heard from again,” Andrew Rossman, one of Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, said.

Abrego Garcia detailed psychological and physical torture he experienced at the notorious Salvadoran prison CECOT. The U.S. is paying El Salvador up to $15 million to detain roughly 300 men at the prison.

Prosecution

As soon as Wednesday, Abrego Garcia could be released from pretrial detention on charges that accuse him of human smuggling that stem from a 2019 traffic stop. A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday in Tennessee federal court on an order pausing Abrego Garcia’s release, at his lawyers’ request over concerns the administration could deport him if he is released from jail.

DOJ attorneys have said that the Trump administration intends to deport Abrego Garcia before his trial in Tennessee is complete.

Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges. His attorneys have accused President Donald Trump’s administration of using the indictment to save face in light of court orders finding Abrego Garcia’s deportation unlawful and the Supreme Court’s order for the federal government to facilitate his return.

Abrego Garcia has had deportation protections in place since 2019, barring his removal to his native El Salvador due to concerns he would experience gang violence there.

The Trump administration has labeled Abrego Garcia a leader of the gang MS-13, but has not produced any evidence of those allegations in court.

Xinis also raised the concern that Abrego Garcia could face harm in a third country because the Trump administration has labeled him a gang leader.

She raised the possibility that if Abrego Garcia is deported to a third country, that country could then take him to El Salvador.

ICE detainer produced

The Trump administration has placed a detainer on Abrego Garcia upon his potential release, meaning U.S. Marshals would hold him until immigration agents can arrest him and take him into custody.

Xinis has repeatedly asked DOJ lawyers for a copy of the detainer to determine what statue Abrego Garcia is being detained on.

DOJ attorneys said they were still working on it and Xinis slammed them for not producing it and said she wouldn’t take the DOJ’s word that the detainer even existed.

“You have taken the presumption of regularity and you’ve destroyed it, in my view,” Xinis said.

Halfway through the hearing, DOJ attorney Sarmad M. Khojasteh produced the detainer and gave a copy to Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, who have also been asking for a copy of the form.

Rossman said the detainer “has a massive hole in it.”

He said that according to the detainer, the reason for holding Abrego Garcia is a final order of removal.

However, a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official testified Thursday that because Abrego Garcia is not in removal proceedings yet, the federal government cannot detail what actions it will take in removing him.

“We have an obvious chicken-and-egg problem,” Rossman said.

DOJ argument ‘defies reality’

Thomas Giles, ICE’s assistant director for enforcement and removal operations who testified Thursday, could not detail which track the Trump administration planned to take for Abrego Garcia. The agency is likely to try either deporting him to a third country or  challenge the bar on removal to El Salvador.

Xinis also expressed doubt that the Trump administration has not had conversations on what to do about Abrego Garcia, given the high-profile nature of the case.

Khojasteh said that an immigration officer would determine next steps for Abrego Garcia.

“It defies reality that this is going to be left to a desk officer,” Xinis said.

Xinis said she’ll make a decision before Wednesday on a temporary restraining order.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., right, meets with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident who was erroneously deported to El Salvador by ICE agents. (Photo courtesy Van Hollen's office)

This report has been updated.

GREENBELT, Maryland — The Trump administration plans to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a third country once he is released from federal custody, a Department of Justice attorney disclosed during a Thursday emergency court hearing.

Attorneys for the unlawfully deported Abrego Garcia had made an emergency request Thursday to bring him back to Maryland while his criminal case continues.

The move by the lawyers followed earlier public statements from Trump administration officials that they would deport Abrego Garcia to El Salvador upon his release from a Tennessee federal court as soon as Friday. But Thursday, plans appeared to have shifted to deportation somewhere else.

DOJ attorney Jonathan Guynn, under questioning by District of Maryland Judge Paula Xinis, said the Trump administration planned to deport Abrego Garcia, and “to a third country is my understanding.”

“He will be taken into (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) custody and removal proceedings will be initiated,” Guynn said of Abrego Garcia’s release. “There are no imminent plans to remove him to a third country.”

Xinis declined the request to return him to Maryland, arguing that Abrego Garcia has not been released and that she’s not clear if she has the jurisdiction to fulfill such a request.

She added that Guynn said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security does not have “imminent plans” to deport Abrego Garcia to a third country, while holding out that possibility.

The Supreme Court this week, ruled that it will allow, for now, the Trump administration to continue carrying out deportations to third countries, after a Massachusetts judge barred removals without proper notice. In such cases, immigrants are deported to countries that are not their native countries and may be far from them.

Jonathan Cooper, a partner of Quinn Emmanuel, the firm representing Abrego Garcia in his immigration case, tried to ask Xinis if she would require the Trump administration to notify Cooper and his team before deporting him to a third country.

“We have concerns that the government may try to move Mr. Abrego Garcia quickly over the weekend,” Cooper said.

Xinis said she would not because Guynn said that the Trump administration had no “imminent plans” to remove Abrego Garcia.

Cooper laid out the same concerns in the written emergency request to Xinis Thursday.

“The Government’s public statements leave little doubt about its plan: remove Abrego Garcia to El Salvador once more,” according to the complaint written by attorneys from Quinn Emmanuel.

“If this Court does not act swiftly, then the Government is likely to whisk Abrego Garcia away to some place far from Maryland,” it says.

Federal prosecutors in Tennessee court have said that should Abrego Garcia be released, he would be immediately arrested by ICE agents and could face deportation back to El Salvador, despite having protections from such removal since 2019.

Tennessee case

Abrego Garcia was returned from El Salvador earlier this month to the United States to face federal criminal charges lodged in Tennessee that accuse him “of conspiracy to unlawfully transport illegal aliens for financial gain” and “unlawful transportation of illegal aliens for financial gain.”

The indictment occurred while Abrego Garcia was housed in a Salvadoran prison.

The human smuggling charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee when police pulled Abrego Garcia over for speeding. Eight other men were in the car, but neither Abrego Garcia nor the passengers were arrested.

DHS opened an investigation into the three-year-old stop and Attorney General Pam Bondi held a press conference on the day Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S. to face federal charges.

She argued that the traffic stop was part of a years-long human smuggling scheme where Abrego Garcia was paid by members of the MS-13 gang to transport migrants who entered the country without legal authorization to destinations across the country.

His attorneys have denied the charges and Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty in federal court in Nashville.

Stephen Miller, the chief architect of many of the president’s immigration policies and a senior White House adviser, has written on social media that Abrego Garcia would be deported back to El Salvador if released. Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have pointed to that statement as to why they want him brought back to Maryland.

The Trump administration has alleged that Abrego Garcia is a leader of the MS-13 gang, and President Donald Trump has made those same allegations. During an interview, the president held up a photo of Abrego Garcia’s knuckles that were digitally altered to type MS-13 on his fingers.

House Democrats pressed DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in May about the doctored photo and she sidestepped questions about whether the photo was real, until she eventually said she was unaware it existed.

She added that even if Abrego Garcia was returned to the U.S. that he would be immediately deported.

Maryland arguments

In Maryland, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said in their complaint they want to ensure he is not deported again.

“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,” they wrote.

“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.”

Abrego Garcia lives with his family in Maryland. “Maryland is where he was on March 12 at the moment his unlawful removal saga began, when ICE agents with ‘no warrant for his arrest and no lawful basis’ arrested him and locked him up at an ‘ICE facility in Baltimore, Maryland,’” the complaint said.

“Returning Abrego Garcia to Maryland implements the Supreme Court’s directive and safeguards this Court’s jurisdiction in this matter,” it added.

Clashes between administration and judges

Abrego Garcia’s wrongful deportation drew national attention to the Trump administration’s aggressive mass deportations campaign that some judges have found skirted due process rights for immigrants. The White House has clashed with the judicial branch with some frequency over immigration decisions.

The Trump administration this week has, in an unusual move, sued the entire judicial bench of the District Court of Maryland, including Xinis, over a standing order to require a two-day pause for deportations due to a high volume of habeas corpus claims from immigrants challenging their detention in the state. A habeas corpus claim allows immigrants to challenge their detention.

Abrego Garcia has had deportation protections from his home country since 2019, but in March he was arrested in Maryland by federal immigration officials while driving his son home and informed his status had changed. Days later, he was deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, a move the Trump administration admitted was a mistake.

In April, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration had to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States, but stopped short of requiring it.

For the next two months, administration officials would testify in a Maryland court that Abrego Garcia’s return was out of their hands and up to the government of El Salvador.

Xinis has accused the Trump administration of stonewalling information and is allowing for discovery in the civil case to continue to determine if the Trump administration violated her court order to return Abrego Garcia. 

A protester holds a photo of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia as demonstrators gather to protest against the deportation of immigrants to El Salvador outside the Permanent Mission of El Salvador to the United Nations on April 24, 2025. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man wrongly deported to his native El Salvador three months ago, was brought back to the U.S. on Friday and will face federal charges, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said.

Abrego Garcia’s case had become a flashpoint in a debate over what due process rights protect immigrants from deportation after federal officials conceded he was sent to a notorious El Salvador mega-prison because of an administrative error. 

Still, President Donald Trump, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, Bondi and other administration officials said for months Abrego Garcia could not be released because of criminal conduct they had not publicly produced evidence of.

In a gaggle with reporters on Air Force One Friday night, Trump declined to say whether it was his decision to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S., according to White House pool reports.

“He should have never had to be returned,” Trump said. “It’s a disaster.”

Bondi said Friday a federal warrant for Abrego Garcia’s arrest on human trafficking charges compelled his release from the Salvadoran prison system.

“Abrego Garcia has landed in the United States to face justice,” Bondi said at a Department of Justice news conference Friday afternoon. “He was a smuggler of humans and women and children.”

The 10-page indictment filed in the Middle District of Tennessee comes after a federal grand jury indicted him on May 21 for allegedly transporting migrants in the U.S. without legal authorization within the country.

Chris Newman, an attorney representing the Abrego Garcia family said at a virtual press event Friday that he remained skeptical of the federal charges lodged at Abrego Garcia.

“I can tell you that we should all treat whatever charges that are being leveled against him with a high degree of suspicion,” Newman said. “We should make sure that he gets a fair (trial) in court because he’s clearly not getting a fair hearing in the court of public opinion.”

Bondi did not detail when the investigation into Abrego Garcia began, but said the federal indictment charges contained “recently found facts.”

“This is what American justice looks like upon completion of his sentence, we anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador,” Bondi said.

WKRN in Nashville said Abrego Garcia’s arraignment has been scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday. 

Outcry over due process

Abrego Garcia’s wrongful deportation to the notorious mega-prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, drew national outcry as the Trump administration clashed with a federal court that ordered the return of the Beltsville man and resisted the U.S. Supreme Court’s order to “facilitate” his return.

Despite the orders, Trump administration officials did not appear to take any public steps to secure Abrego Garcia’s release, and at times seemed to relish their defiance of the courts.

Bondi thanked El Salvador’s government Friday for releasing Abrego Garcia in compliance with the warrant.

The Trump administration has argued in federal court in Maryland for months that Abrego Garcia is in the custody of El Salvador and therefore cannot be returned, despite a $15 million agreement between the U.S. and the Salvadoran government to keep roughly 300 men removed from the U.S. and detained at CECOT. Abrego Garcia had been moved to a different El Salvador prison prior to his release.

Abrego Gacia had deportation protections to his home country of El Salvador since 2019.

He was pulled over by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in March and informed that his immigration status had changed. He was later placed on one of three deportation flights on March 15 to CECOT.

The Trump administration admitted his removal was an “administrative error” but has since alleged that Abrego Garcia was a leader in the MS-13 gang without producing evidence in the federal civil court overseeing the suit challenging his removal.

Maryland U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador to press for Abrego Garcia’s release and return to the U.S., welcomed the news as a victory for due process rights.

“As I have repeatedly said, this is not about the man, it’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all,” the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. “The Administration will now have to make its case in the court of law, as it should have all along.”

William J. Ford contributed to this report.