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Salvadorian migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back in federal court in Tennessee, where a federal judge on Wednesday will hear an appeal from the Justice Department seeking to keep him detained in criminal custody pending trial.
The request to U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw from the Justice Department caps off months of confusing and contradictory statements from the Trump administration in the case of Abrego Garcia, who was erroneously deported to El Salvador in March in violation of a court order, and returned to the U.S. three months later in June.
The acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, Robert McGuire, urged Crenshaw in a new filing this week to keep Abrego Garcia detained in criminal custody pending trial, arguing in a filing that “there is no combination of bail conditions that can reasonably assure either the safety of the community or the defendant’s appearance in future court proceedings.”
ABREGO GARCIA LAWYERS ASK US JUDGE TO ORDER RETURN TO MARYLAND AMID ONGOING CRIMINAL CASE
But even that filing highlights the Justice Department’s conflicting statements about its plans for Abrego Garcia, whose case is at the center of two high-profile hearings in Maryland and Tennessee.
After months of delay, the Trump administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S., where he was immediately slapped with a newly unsealed federal indictment charging him with crimes stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee.
Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty to those charges, and was ordered released pending trial by U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes.
Holmes later amended her order to allow Abrego Garcia to be kept in federal custody at the request of his own legal team. His lawyers cited concerns that ICE would immediately take him into immigration custody and deport him to a third country upon his release.
Senior Justice Department officials and ICE officials conceded to this plan last week, telling U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland that the government would immediately begin removal proceedings to deport Abrego Garcia to a third country, regardless of the status of his criminal case. In doing so, they broke with previous assertions from U.S. officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, who vowed when he was returned that he would remain in U.S. custody for the duration of his trial and any prison time.
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Asked by Judge Xinis last week whether the government planned to hold Abrego Garcia in ICE custody until his criminal case in Tennessee is over, lawyers for the administration did not mince their words.
“No,” Justice Department attorney Jonathan Guynn answered simply.
“There’s no intention to just put him in limbo in ICE custody while we wait for the criminal case to unfold,” Guynn told Xinis. “He will be removed, as would any other illegal alien in that process.”
Abrego Garcia’s second detention hearing in Tennessee comes after his legal team asked a federal judge in Maryland last week to impose sanctions on the Trump administration for the administration’s “egregious” and “repeated violations” of discovery obligations, according to the filing.
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Xinis also pressed Justice Department officials for details as to when they opened a federal investigation into Abrego Garcia in a separate district in Tennessee, and how the timing of the investigation and federal indictment squared with the government’s testimony in her own court.
She noted that, by the government’s own admission, it began investigating Abrego Garcia in the Middle District of Tennessee on April 28, 2025 — the same time officials were telling the court that the administration was powerless to order a foreign government to return him, in compliance with the court order.
“At the same time that [the government] was saying it had ‘no power to produce’” Abrego Garcia in the U.S., Trump administration officials had “already secured an indictment against him in the Middle District of Tennessee, right?” Xinis asked Justice Department lawyer Bridget O’Hickey.
“Yes your honor,” O’Hickey replied.
An incredulous Xinis noted that, just six days later, the government testified they had no power to bring him back to the U.S. “Now I have real concerns — as if I haven’t for the last three months,” Xinis noted in response.
“Given the series of unlawful actions” here, I feel like it’s well within my authority to order this hearing — perhaps more than one — to hear testimony from at least one witness with firsthand knowledge, who can answer these questions about the immediate next steps” from the government pending Abrego Garca’s release from custody, she said.
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