Greenbelt, Maryland — A top immigration official from the Trump administration is facing questions in federal court Friday about plans to again deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man who was mistakenly deported to a prison in his home country earlier this year before he was brought back to the U.S. to face criminal charges.
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On Monday, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Justice Department to provide a witness for Friday’s hearing with first-hand knowledge of the Trump administration’s plans to remove Abrego Garcia to Eswatini, the small African nation formerly known as Swaziland, as it attempts to yet again deport him while his criminal case on charges of human smuggling plays out in Tennessee.
John Schultz, an official from Enforcement and Removal Operations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is testifying to provide some clarity about what the administration intends to do next with Abrego Garcia and told the court that government officials have had discussions with numerous foreign nations about accepting him upon his removal from the U.S.
Schultz told the court that the U.S. has reached an agreement with Eswatini to accept people deported from the U.S. and has made assurances they will be safe from torture and persecution. He said Eswatini hasn’t agreed to receive Abrego Garcia, and the Trump administration did not reach out to the country about him until Wednesday evening, according to Schultz.
The immigration official told the court the Trump administration has also been discussing removing Abrego Garcia to Ghana, but a notice of his potential deportation to the country had been sent to Abrego Garcia prematurely.
Ghana’s foreign affairs minister, however, said on social media earlier Friday that his country “is not accepting Abrego Garcia.”
“He cannot be deported to Ghana. This has been directly and unambiguously conveyed to US authorities,” Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the foreign affairs minister, wrote on Facebook. “In my interactions with US officials, I made clear that our understanding to accept a limited number of non-criminal West Africans, purely on the grounds of African solidarity and humanitarian principles would not be expanded.”
Schultz said he is “confident” that once the Trump administration receives approval from a third country to accept Abrego Garcia, he could be deported within 72 hours.
Ahead of the hearing, Xinis said she wanted the witness to have answers on what steps the government has taken to deport Abrego Garcia to Eswatini or any other country, including Costa Rica, which he designated as his preferred country of removal. The judge also said the administration official should be prepared to testify about what additional steps the government could take “in the reasonably foreseeable future” to deport Abrego Garcia.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have moved to free their client from federal immigration detention as his immigration case plays out, citing a 2001 Supreme Court decision that found federal law does not permit “indefinite detention” for those the government seeks to deport. Detention should be limited to a “period reasonably necessary” to bring about their removal from the U.S, the high court ruled.
After being released from criminal custody on unrelated charges, Abrego Garcia was taken into immigration custody in late August, and his lawyers argue that his continued confinement is illegal. They wrote in a challenge to the legality of his detention that because the Trump administration has been relying on a “purported” final order of removal for Abrego Garcia from 2019, the “presumptively reasonable period” of detention would’ve expired in 2020.
Abrego Garcia had been living in Maryland for more than a decade with his wife and children when he was first taken into immigration custody in March and deported to El Salvador. But an immigration judge in 2019 had granted Abrego Garcia a withholding of removal, a legal status that prohibited the Department of Homeland Security from removing him to his home country because of likely persecution by local gangs.
Xinis ordered the Trump administration in April to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S., though the Department of Homeland Security resisted doing so for weeks. But in early June, Abrego Garcia was brought back to the U.S. after a federal grand jury indicted him on two counts of human smuggling.
He pleaded not guilty to both counts, and in July, a federal judge overseeing his criminal case ordered him to be released on bond while awaiting trial. But Abrego Garcia remained detained for several more weeks because of concerns that he would be swiftly taken into immigration custody following his release and deported.
He had been held at a detention center in Virginia but was transferred to a facility in Pennsylvania last month.
Earlier this month, an immigration judge in Maryland rejected a request from Abrego Garcia’s legal team to reopen his immigration case and allow him to seek asylum in the United States. While the bid was denied, Abrego Garcia can appeal the decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals.
Last week, a federal judge in Tennessee said he believes the Justice Department’s criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia may have been “vindictive,” writing on Friday that “The government had a significant stake in retaliating against Abrego’s success.” The judge has not made a final ruling on those claims, and will allow for discovery and a hearing on Abrego Garcia’s claims.
