Kilmar Abrego García will remain in jail at least until Friday, while lawyers in the federal case that face clarify if prosecutors can avoid deportation if they are released while waiting for the trial. This was decided by Nashville’s district judge (Tennessee), Barbara Holmes, who on Sunday had already announced that he would be released. At the hearing held on Wednesday, the magistrate asked to receive more information to know if, if released, they will allow the defendant to go to the trial hearings.
The 29 -year -old Salvadoran, who was mistaken and returned to the United States on June 6, faces positions for people traffic. At the hearing, Holmes was expected to specify the conditions of his release. Abrego García’s lawyers feared that the agents of the Customs Immigration and Control Service (ICE) would arrest him again to start the deportation procedure. Holmes had also anticipated that ICE would probably take care of Abrego García’s custody as soon as he left.
The magistrate asked that the Department of Justice cooperate with the Department of National Security to ensure that Abrego can attend the hearings and the possible trial in this case, even while being in Custody of the ICE. He also asked to be transferred to a detention center in the Central District of Tennessee or nearby, and that his lawyers are allowed to communicate with him.
On Sunday, Holmes rejected the arguments presented by prosecutors and said he did not represent a risk of escape or a danger to the community. The Government, who admitted to having made a mistake by deporting it on March 15, has since accused him of being a violent person and a dangerous terrorist, a member of the Salvadoran Criminal Gang MS-13 and part of a migrant traffic network. And the family and lawyers of Abrego García have denied the accusations.
The lawyers of the Department of Justice had appealed the decision of Holmes and request that, if not, it is most likely to be deported, “leaving the public irremediably damaged.” A district judge rejected the appeal.
The Trump administration has always declared its intention that, in one way or another, Abrego García will continue imprisoned. “Kilmar Abrego García is a dangerous illegal foreigner”, in a publication on social networks on Monday. “We have said it for months and remains true: it will never be free on American soil.”
While he was in El Salvador imprisoned, several judicial decisions, even from the Supreme Court, requested their return, but to facilitate it. It was not even and only to face a case with two criminal positions: one of conspiracy for the transport of undocumented migrants and another for transport of undocumented migrants. The Salvadoran declared himself innocent of the positions at the first hearing, which was held on June 13.
Abrego García “was kidnapped, illegally detained and imprisoned by the Trump administration on March 12 and, instead of correcting errors, the administration has taken Kilmar to Nashville to face unfounded charges,” said Lydia Walther-Rodríguez, director of home organization, the organization that has been involved in her defense, at a press conference hours before the audience was held.
Wedding anniversary
Jennifer Vásquez Sura, Abrego García’s wife, visibly lamented that the day of her wedding anniversary had to be in court. “Again, I look separated from my children to travel to Nashville and fight for Kilmar’s freedom,” he said. “Instead of celebrating our anniversary with our family, I am here. But I am not alone. In honor of Kilmar and our anniversary, I will celebrate our fight and that of all the people who support us and refuse to surrender,” he added.
The accusations that weigh on El Salvadoran are based on a 2022 video of a traffic control. Abrego García was interrogated by agents when he was driving a car with nine undocumented men in Tennessee. The agents then considered suspicious that none of the occupants carried luggage, although they said they moved to carry out a job. The incident was not older and Abrego García continued the trip to Maryland. The government has used it as proof that it trafficked with migrants in exchange for money.
Abrego García was one of the more than 200 migrants who were deported to El Salvador last March 15. The expulsions occurred without any court order, invoking the anachronistic law of foreign enemies of 1798, which has been used only in war situations. A judge ordered that the planes that moved to the migrants turned back and returned to the United States, but the government said it was late and the detainees ended up at the Center for Confinement for Terrorists (CECOT), the mega prison of the Central American country known for violating the human rights of prisoners.
“We ask that this administration stop the inhuman treatment given to the Kilmar family and all the kilmar that continue unjustly imprisoned and those who continue to deny the rule of law and due process,” said Walther-Rodríguez.
Abrego García had a judicial protection granted in 2019 that prevented deportation to El Salvador, a country from which he fled and where the judge estimated that he would be in danger if he returned. to the United States, where he would enter irregularly, to flee the violence of the gangs, which extorted his family and pressed to join them. Upon arriving in the US, he worked as a metallurgical worker and resided with his wife and three children, two of them autistic, in the state of Maryland.
The family initiated a lawsuit against their deportation and the government’s lawyer, Erez Reuveni, admitted to the judge who carried the case, magistrate Paula Xinis, of the Maryland district court, which her expulsion was an “error.” Reveni, who was fired for it, revealed on Tuesday that, like the one that requested the return of the planes that took Abrego García to El Salvador.
“Kilmar’s case remains a warning on how immigrant, black and brunette communities are being target of government abuses, openly ignoring due process and the rule of law. This attack on individual rights reflects a broader threat to democracy in Tennessee and throughout the country,” said Lisa Sherman Lun Tennessee, before the audience.
