U.S. Will Try to Deport Abrego Garcia Before He Faces Trial, Justice Dept. Says
That plan, laid out by a Justice Department lawyer at a hearing in Federal District Court in Maryland, directly contradicted a statement by the White House last month describing the possibility that the administration might re-deport Mr. Abrego Garcia as 'fake news.'
At the hearing, Judge Paula Xinis, who is overseeing the original civil case emerging from the wrongful deportation, expressed frustration at the government's shifting views of how it planned to handle Mr. Abrego Garcia. The statements in court by the Justice Department lawyer, Jonathan Guynn, further muddied an already unclear picture of Mr. Abrego Garcia's future after the administration abruptly returned him to the United States last month to face criminal charges.
At one point, Judge Xinis compared getting certain answers out of the government to 'nailing Jell-O to a wall.' At another point, she described the 'complete chaos' that had arisen from Mr. Abrego Garcia being 'caught' between his civil case in Maryland and his criminal case in Federal District Court in Nashville.
Mr. Abrego Garcia is in custody in Nashville, where he has been indicted on charges of taking part in a yearslong conspiracy to smuggle undocumented immigrants across the United States. Even though a federal magistrate judge has said he can go free because he was not a flight risk or a danger to the community, his lawyers asked that he remain locked up for the moment, fearing that the administration might seek to deport him again.
There has been persistent confusion about what might happen to Mr. Abrego Garcia almost from the moment he was brought back from his erroneous expulsion to El Salvador.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Posts criticising Australian migration policy misuse decade-old picture
A photo of women in sky-blue burqas -- typically associated with the Taliban's strict dress code in Afghanistan -- has been edited and misleadingly featured in an article criticising Australia's immigration policy. Social media users believed the picture depicted "recent refugees" in Australia but it was shot in Afghanistan more than a decade ago, the photographer told AFP. "Half of all recent refugees in Australia are on welfare and 44% can't speak English," reads a headline emblazoned on an image of women in burqas published on Facebook by The Noticer -- an online news site that Australian-based ABC News says "promotes white supremacist ideologies" (archived link). The post has been shared over 2,500 times since its publication on July 4, 2025. It links to an article highlighting statistics the government released in late June about various types of permanent migrants who moved to Australia between 2012 and 2021. Among those surveyed are those classified as "humanitarian migrants", more commonly known as refugees and asylum seekers (archived link). According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 44 percent of humanitarian migrants who were in the country for less than five years do not speak English very well, though the survey noted that proficiency "was higher for permanent migrants who had lived in Australia for longer". The image also spread on Facebook, X and Instagram by users criticising Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Labor government's migration policies. Some social media users appeared to think the women in burqas were in Australia. One commented: "Their country has a rule that women's heads must be fully covered at all times, and usually their bodies too. Why aren't they told that that rule does not apply here and the law states that your face and head must be fully visible when entering any businesses?" Another user said: "Just look around the shops or your neighbourhood, these in Islamic and Indian garments walking and enjoying the streets whilst you are on the way to work. Yes, we are carrying them so wake up!" But the photo has been cropped and shared in a misleading context. A reverse image search found a larger photo on the Flickr page for The Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion (IMTFI), which is part of University of California Irvine School of Social Sciences (archived here and here). That picture reveals more clues that the women were not in Australia, as it shows the faces of the people around them and their attire, as well as a red shelter being held up with wooden poles. The Peace Research Institute Oslo published the same photo credited to researcher Jan Chipchase (archived link). He told AFP that he took it "a long time ago" in Afghanistan, and confirmed IMTFI's Flickr page information, which dated it as being shot on August 22, 2010. "That would be correct. I did a project for the IMTFI at that point," he said in an email on July 11. Since their return to power in Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban have imposed an ultra-strict vision of Islamic law, modelled on their previous rule from 1996 to 2001. Women are required to have their bodies and faces covered (archived link).
USA Today
32 minutes ago
- USA Today
'Flood' of ICE agents is coming to cities run by Democrats, White House warns
Migrant-rights groups worry that harsher enforcement will lead to more civil rights violations and prompt community pushback. White House border czar Tom Homan is promising to "flood" cities run by Democrats with immigration agents, as the Trump administration ramps up border enforcement. Congress earlier this month gave the Trump administration more than $170 billion over the next four years to dramatically scale up enforcement, detention and deportation, and Homan said Americans living in so-called "sanctuary cities" can expect to see far more agents on the street soon. "We're going to flood the zone," Homan said at a July 21 press conference. "Sanctuary cities get exactly what they don't want: more agents in the community and more agents in the work site. When we arrest (a suspected illegal immigrant) in the community, if he's with others that are in the country illegally, they're coming too." Sanctuary cities won't help with ICE arrests The White House has repeatedly singled out cities from Los Angeles to Denver to Boston for their refusal to assist ICE agents making detentions, and Homan has threatened to arrest elected officials who stymie the president. Migrant-rights groups warn increased enforcement raises the risk of more civil rights violations and violent confrontations, like the chaotic protests that broke out in Los Angeles last month following Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at a Home Depot, among other locations. Homan spoke in New York City after an off-duty Border Patrol agent was injured during an attempted robbery that officials say was committed by an undocumented immigrant. Homan and other White House officials argue the agent would never have been hurt if his alleged assailant had previously been blocked from entering the country or deported. Trump officials have long complained that many cities run by Democrats refuse to honor requests to detain people on behalf of ICE in local jails, and Homan said doing so makes it harder for ICE to arrest "bad guys" in the safety of a detention center. He said making street arrests is more dangerous for everyone, requiring more personnel to operate safely. Federal officials say there's been an 800% increase in assaults against immigration agents, although they have declined to release comprehensive data. Last month, Trump deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles to help protect federal buildings and assist ICE agents in making detentions, a move that temporarily escalated tensions. ICE has conducted immigration enforcement actions around the country, but it's yet to focus a sustained effort in any particular sanctuary city outside of the Los Angeles area. Budget balloons for immigrant arrests and detentions The federal spending plan, among other things, provides funding for 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to help carry out Trump's plan to deport 1 million people annually. Trump won the White House after campaigning on a platform that included dramatically stricter immigration enforcement and border controls, and the federal funding plan he signed July 4 provides money to dramatically expand the number of ICE agents on the streets, $45 billion for more than 100,000 new detention beds for people facing deportation, $46.6 billion for border wall construction and $10 billion in additional Homeland Security funding. ICE now has a bigger budget than the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Prisons combined, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council. Public has begun pushing back against Trump's immigration policies The increased funding for one of Trump's signature policies comes as the American public appears to be growing increasingly concerned about the tactics being deployed. A July 20 poll by CBS/YouGov found that 56% of Americans disapproved of the president's immigration measures, while 44% approved, a 10-point drop from February. While Trump and Homan argue that anyone living illegally in the United States is by definition a criminal, federal statistics show that only about 36% of current ICE detainees have ever been convicted of a crime, while 31% have pending criminal charges and the remaining 33% are facing just immigration violations, according to analysis by Austin Kocher, a Syracuse University research assistant professor who tracks ICE data. The nonprofit American Immigration Council criticized the massive funding expansion, which came without any fundamental reform to the nation's immigration process. Many immigrants living in the United States entered under policies that were legal at the time, or have been waiting years for the chance to apply for citizenship. 'Throwing billions at detention centers and enforcement agents is short-sighted. Instead, we should be investing in a system aimed at welcoming immigrants that contribute billions to our economy,' said Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council. 'We don't need more jail beds and indiscriminate raids. We need balanced solutions that strengthen due process and keep families together.'
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The House speaker is stalling for Trump, days after saying the public deserves transparency.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to spare Donald Trump from another Jeffrey Epstein headache—at least for now. As uproar from the MAGA base continues, the GOP leader said there will be no vote on any measure related to the so-called 'Epstein files' before lawmakers head off on Thursday for summer break until September. Johnson insisted there's 'no daylight' between House Republicans and the president, citing Trump's call last week for the Justice Department to make public grand jury testimony from the Epstein prosecution.
