ReutersThe Trump administration said an El Salvador man was wrongly deported and then brought back to the United States on criminal charges, and would “never be free” even if a judge ordered his lawsuit to be released.
Kilmarábrego García was deported in March as part of the migrant repression. Government officials said he was mistaken for being wrong, but they were unable to bring him back.
Earlier this month, he was taken to Tennessee, where the Justice Department accused him of smuggling.
The judge overseeing the case said on Sunday that Mr Ábrego García should be released from legal custody while awaiting trial. But she noted that immigration officials still have the right to detain him.
“Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a dangerous crime illegal alien,” Department of Homeland Security spokesman Tricia McLaughlin said in a social media post on Monday.
“We have been saying it for months and it remains the same to this day: He will never be free in American soil.”
The ministry is responsible for overseeing immigration law enforcement.
Judge Barbara Holmes said in a comment on Sunday that “the government failed to prove” that Mr. Ábrego García was a flight risk or could attempt to stop justice.
She also wrote that once the Ministry of Justice releases him, immigration officials may detain Mr. Ábrego García as they work to evacuate him from the country.
In a federal indictment filed in early June, the government accused Mr Ábrego García of participating in a trafficking plot within a few years, moving undocumented immigrants from Texas to other parts of the country.
The allegation lasted until 2016, when he claimed he had shipped undocumented individuals between Texas and Maryland and other states, more than 100 times.
He pleaded not guilty.
The Trump administration also accuses him of being a member of the MS-13 gang, although Ábrego García and his lawyers strongly deny it.
Mr Ábregogo García was initially deported on March 15 under the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Alien enemy lawa wartime law that allows the president to detain or expel locals and citizens of enemy countries.
He was taken to the CECOT large prison in El Salvador, known for his cruel conditions.
Although administration lawyers initially said he was taken there due to “administrative errors”, the Trump administration would not bring him back.
The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the administration to “promote” his return to his home in Maryland and began a legal battle over the court’s demands.
Mr. Ábrego García entered the United States illegally from a teenager in El Salvador. In 2019, he and three other men in Maryland were arrested and detained by federal immigration authorities.
An immigration judge granted him protection from deportation on the grounds that the local gang of his home country was threatened by persecution.
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