Trump administration plans to send Abrego Garcia to 'third country' as he awaits Tennessee trial

Jeff Barker, Baltimore Sun on Jul 7, 2025

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GREENBELT, Md. — The Justice Department’s “current plan” is to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia again — not to El Salvador — if he is freed from federal custody as he awaits trial in Tennessee, a U.S. government attorney told a court Tuesday.

“The plan currently is to remove him to a third country,” Jonathan Guynn, the attorney, told U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis.

The judge, expressing frustration at the “chaos” surrounding the government’s plans for Abrego, said she would like to hear additional testimony during a hearing at 1 p.m. Thursday to clarify the government’s “immediate next steps” for Abrego Garcia.

Attorneys for Abrego Garcia — a sheet metal worker living in Maryland when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador and imprisoned in March — told Xinis they fear their client will be denied due process for a second time.

“In nine days, we could be faced with the same set of circumstances that got us here in the first place: an illegal removal,” Andrew Rossman, one of Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, told the judge. “The threat of removing Mr. Abrego again without due process is real.”

Rossman referred to July 16, the scheduled date for a court hearing in Nashville that could decide whether Abrego Garcia is released from federal custody pending a trial on human smuggling charges.

The Justice Department said it is too soon to tell which third country Abrego Garcia could be sent to or if that is definitely the plan.

Xinis appeared frustrated at the lack of a plan for Abrego Garcia’s possible removal from the country.

“We don’t have a time and we don’t have a place. It’s chaos,” the judge said.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys are seeking his return to Maryland. Returning him to Maryland “would be complete fulfillment of his rights,” Rossman told the judge.

Abrego Garcia worked as a sheet metal apprentice until his deportation to El Salvador due to an “administrative error,” according to the Trump administration. He was legally allowed to be in the U.S. because a federal immigration judge granted him a legal protective order in 2019 to prevent his removal to El Salvador, where he has said gangs threatened him. That order is why government attorneys are now considering sending him to a third country instead of his native El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to human smuggling charges resulting from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee in which he was driving with nine passengers. His attorneys have said the case was manufactured to justify his being deported.

On Monday, Xinis berated Trump administration lawyers for saying they lacked the power to return Abrego Garcia from El Salvador but then securing his release to Tennessee once he was indicted.

She declined the administration’s request to dismiss the wrongful deportation suit filed by Abrego Garcia that seeks his return to Maryland.

“Those are powerful arguments to say, ‘I don’t have the power,’ ” the judge told attorneys.

“It’s illogical. You had the power to produce him because you did produce him,” the judge said.

Justice Department lawyers had said for weeks that they lacked the power to return Abrego Garcia to the United States because a sovereign nation was holding him.

The government has said the wrongful deportation suit in Maryland should be dismissed because Abrego Garcia is now back in the United States.

But Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney for Abrego Garcia, said after the hearing that the case isn’t over because his client isn’t in Maryland. He said attorneys are asking Xinis to order that Abrego Garcia be returned “to this building,” meaning the Greenbelt federal courthouse, so his case could be resolved.

Justice Department spokesman Chad Gilmartin said last week, according to The Associated Press, that the department intends to try Abrego Garcia on the smuggling charges before it moves to deport him, stating that Abrego Garcia “has been charged with horrific crimes, including trafficking children, and will not walk free in our country again.”

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