Latest news with #AbregoGarcia
Fox News
6 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
Fox News Politics Newsletter: A Big, Beautiful Clawback
Welcome to the Fox News Politics newsletter, with the latest updates on the Trump administration, Capitol Hill and more Fox News politics content. Here's what's happening… - Trump admin readies for fight after judges block Abrego Garcia removal for now - Thailand, Cambodia troops open fire on each other, killing at least 12 - Senate Republicans call on DOJ to appoint special counsel to probe Obama-Russia intel President Donald Trump signed into law his roughly $9 billion rescissions package to scale back already approved federal funds for foreign aid and public broadcasting Thursday, after both chambers of Congress approved the legislation earlier in the month, sources familiar to the matter have confirmed. The signing marks another legislative victory for the Trump administration just two weeks after the president signed into law his massive tax and domestic policy measure, dubbed the "big, beautiful bill." The rescissions package pulls back nearly $8 billion in funding Congress already approved for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a previously independent agency that provided impoverished countries aid and offered development assistance… READ MORE 'LAWLESS AND INSANE': Trump admin readies for fight after judges block Abrego Garcia removal for now CLASH OVER AUTHORITY: Trump foe Boasberg to grill DOJ over migrant flights in heated hearing REVERSING COURSE: Trump says he wants Elon Musk to 'thrive' after suggesting DOGE could investigate him POWER STRUGGLE: Trump stands by Alina Habba as DOJ clashes with judges over her replacement LEGAL SCRUTINY: DOJ forms Russiagate 'strike force' to investigate declassified Obama-era evidence LEGAL SETBACK: Federal appeals court rules against Trump's birthright citizenship executive order 'I AM RECOVERING': Pam Bondi cancels appearance at anti-trafficking summit over medical issue ACCOUNTABILITY TEST: Zelenskyy forced to rethink anti-corruption law after public backlash MAN MACHINE MERGER: China experimenting with brain-computer interfaces in global race for AI dominance: report BORDER BATTLE ERUPTS: Thailand, Cambodia troops open fire on each other, killing at least 12 BEACH BLAST: Battle over the Black Sea: Russia, Ukraine strike top resort cities EYES IN THE SKIES: Rules keeping drones on leash could loosen with deregulation proposal from Congress COLLUSION CHAOS: Trump-foe Adam Schiff dismisses Tulsi Gabbard's declassified Russia collusion intelligence as 'dishonest' BEG YOUR PARDON: WATCH: House Republicans zero in on Biden autopen pardons after bombshell report EPSTEIN SECRETS: Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to see how feds meeting plays out amid subpoena: brother CREATING OPPORTUNITY: EXCLUSIVE: GOP proposal seeks to end 'backdoor hiring practices' at American universities INTEL DECEPTION: Senate Republicans call on DOJ to appoint special counsel to probe Obama-Russia intel BRIDGING THE DIVIDE: 'Shirts and Skins': How one Republican bridged the gap to pass Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' NOT WELCOME: House Republican introduces companion bill to end China's buying of American farmland 'GOOD LUCK': House to vote on censuring Dem rep charged in ICE facility incident KLAIN TO FAME: Ex-Biden chief of staff Ron Klain faces grilling in House GOP's cover-up probe ANTI-ANTISEMITISM: Pro-Israel Dem says those who won't decry Hamas over Oct. 7 attack 'have no business' posing as humanitarians FINDING THE FORCE: 'Star Wars bar of leftists': Weingarten, Hunter, Mamdani prove Democrat Party lead by extreme figures 'SEVER' CONNECTIONS: West Point Bible crest controversy spurs lawsuit from conservative watchdog THE CHOSEN ONE: RNC Chair Michael Whatley to seek open Republican-held Senate seat in battleground North Carolina: sources HATE SPEECH SILENCE: Dem governor criticizes Mamdani for not condemning 'blatantly antisemitic' rhetoric WAKE UP CALL: Mamdani's former Dem colleague rails against his signature campaign promise: 'Nail in the coffin' Get the latest updates on the Trump administration and Congress, exclusive interviews and more on
UPI
7 days ago
- Politics
- UPI
Judge temporarily pauses Abrego Garcia's release from custody
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, on April 17 speaks with his Maryland constituent, Kilmar Abrego Garcia (L), a Salvadoran immigrant deported to El Salvador. File Photo by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele | License Photo July 23 (UPI) -- A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily paused Kilmer Abrego Garcia's release from criminal custody after two judges earlier in the day ruled the accused MS-13 gang member should return to his home in Baltimore awaiting trial. Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national living legally in the United States since 2019, was deported in March to a notorious prison in El Salvador because of an "administrative error." In June, he was brought to Tennessee on two criminal charges of human smuggling. He pleaded not guilty. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holles, who serves in the Middle District of Tennessee, determined that Abrego Garcia should remain in federal custody for 30 days "pending further order." Magistrates are named by the court's district judges. Both sides sought the pause -- the federal government an opportunity to appeal and his legal team to seek further court relief. U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Nashville and Paula Ixis in Maryland had blocked the government from detaining and deporting after release from criminal custody. President Barack Obama appointed both judges. Crenshaw ruled the government "fails to provide any evidence that there is something in Abrego's history, or his exhibited characteristics, that warrants detention." He said: "For the Court to find that Abrego is a member of or in affiliation with MS13, it would have to make so many inferences from the Government's proffered evidence in its favor that such conclusion would border on fanciful." Minutes later, Ixis ordered the government not to take him into immigration custody once released from criminal detention. He must be under Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervision in Maryland, she ruled. And if there are third-party proceedings, Abrego and his counsel must be given 72 "business hours" notice, the judge ruled. After the earlier rulings, Homeland Security Assistand Security Assisrant Secretary said in a statement to NBC News: "The facts remain, this MS-13 gang member, human trafficker and illegal alien will never walk America's streets again. The fact this unhinged judge is trying to tell ICE they can't arrest someone who is subject to immigration arrest under federal law is insane." "These rulings are a powerful rebuke of the government's lawless conduct and a critical safeguard for Kilmar's due process rights," Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego Garcia's attorneys, said in a statement to CNN. "After the government unlawfully deported him once without warning, this legal protection is essential." Last week, Kristi Noem, the secretary of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, described him as a "horrible human being and a monster, and he should never be released free." She said: He has a lifetime history of trafficking individuals and of taking advantage of minors, soliciting pornography from them, nude photos of them, abusing his wife, abusing other illegals, aliens that were in this country, women that were under his care while he was trafficking them." In the indictment, Abrego Garcia and others are accused of participating in a conspiracy in which they "knowingly and unlawfully transported thousands of undocumented aliens who had no authorization to be present in the United States, and many of whom were MS-13 members and associates." The allegations from 2016 to this year involve a half-dozen alleged unnamed co-conspirators. Abrego Garcia and others worked to move undocumented aliens between Texas and Maryland and other states more than 100 times, according to the indictment. In November 2022, Abrego Garcia is accused of driving a Chevrolet Suburban and was pulled over on a interstate highway in Tennessee with nine other Hispanic men without identification or luggage. Prosecutors allege that Abrego Garcia transported narcotics to Maryland, though he wasn't previously charged with any crimes. These allegations were not made public after March 15 when Abrego Garcia was deported to El Salvador's CECOT mega-prison. He later went to another prison in El Salvador. On June 10, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to "facilitate" the return of him from El Salvador after a ruling by Xinis. Earlier this month, a lawyer for DOJ said in federal court he would be deported, but not to El Salvador -- if he is released from criminal custody. Abrego Garcia, 30, is married to a U.S. citizen and has three children.
Epoch Times
7 days ago
- Politics
- Epoch Times
Judges Order Kilmar Abrego Garcia Released From Federal Custody
WASHINGTON—Two federal judges on July 23 ordered that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador subject to a high-profile prosecution by the United States, be released from federal custody and permitted to return to his family in Maryland. Abrego Garcia, 30, was first removed to El Salvador on March 15 following the government's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, and detained in the maximum security prison Terrorism Confinement Center in that country—prompting opposition from Democrats and illegal immigrant advocacy groups—before being returned to the United States to face felony smuggling charges in Tennessee.
New York Post
7 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Federal judge protects Kilmar Abrego Garcia from deportation by Trump admin
A federal judge in Maryland issued an emergency ruling Wednesday blocking the Trump administration from immediately taking Salvadorian migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia into ICE custody for 72 hours after he is released from criminal custody in Nashville, Tennessee — attempting to slow, if only temporarily, a case at the center of a legal and political maelstrom. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said in her order that the government must refrain from immediately taking Abrego into ICE custody pending release from criminal custody in Tennessee, and ordered he be returned to the ICE Order of Supervision at the Baltimore Field Office— the closest ICE facility near the district of Maryland where Abrego was arrested earlier this year. Advertisement Xinis said at an evidentiary hearing this month that she would take action soon, in anticipation of a looming detention hearing for Abrego Garcia in his criminal case. She said she planned to issue the order with sufficient time to block the Trump administration's stated plans to immediately begin the process of deporting Abrego Garcia again upon release — this time to a third country such as Mexico or South Sudan. 9 This undated photo provided by CASA, an immigrant advocacy organization, in April 2025, shows Kilmar Abrego Garcia. AP Xinis's order said the additional time will ensure Abrego can raise any credible fears of removal to a third country, and via 'the appropriate channels in the immigration process.' She also ordered the government to provide Abrego and his attorneys with 'immediate written notice' of plans to transport him to a third country, again with the 72-hour notice period, 'so that Abrego Garcia may assert claims of credible fear or seek any other relief available to him under the law and the Constitution.' Xinis said in her order Wednesday that the 72-hour notice period is necessary 'to prevent a repeat of Abrego Garcia's unlawful deportation to El Salvador by way of third-country removal.' Advertisement 'Defendants have taken no concrete steps to ensure that any prospective third country would not summarily return Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in an end-run around the very withholding order that offers him uncontroverted protection,' she said. 9 Maryland Federal Judge Paula Xinis. Senate Judiciary Committee The order from Xinis, who presided over Abrego Garcia's civil case, was ultimately handed down on Wednesday just two minutes after a federal judge in Nashville — U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw — issued a separate order, upholding a lower judge's decision that Abrego should be released from criminal custody pending trial in January. Crenshaw said in his order that the government failed to provide 'any evidence that there is something in Abrego's history at warrants detention.' Advertisement The plans, which Xinis ascertained over the course of a multi-day evidentiary hearing earlier this month, capped an exhausting, 19-week legal saga in the case of Abrego Garcia that spanned two continents, multiple federal courts, including the Supreme Court, and inspired countless hours of news coverage. 9 The indictment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia that charges him with transporting people who were in the United States illegally, is photographed, Friday, June 6, 2025, in Washington. AP Still, it ultimately yielded little in the way of new answers, and Xinis likened the process to 'nailing Jell-O to a wall,' and 'beating a frustrated and dead horse,' among other things. 'We operate as government of laws,' she scolded lawyers for the Trump administration in one of many terse exchanges. 'We don't operate as a government of 'take my word for it.'' Advertisement Xinis had repeatedly floated the notion of a temporary restraining order, or TRO, to ensure certain safeguards were in place to keep Abrego Garcia in ICE custody, and appeared to agree with his attorneys that such an order is likely needed to prevent their client from being removed again, without access to counsel or without a chance to appeal his country of removal. 'I'm just trying to understand what you're trying to do,' Xinis said on more than one occasion, growing visibly frustrated. 9 Kilmar Abrego Garcia is seen wearing a Chicago Bulls hat in this handout image obtained by Reuters on April 9, 2025. via REUTERS 'I'm deeply concerned that if there's no restraint on you, Abrego will be on another plane to another country,' she told the Justice Department, noting pointedly that 'that's what you've done in other cases.' Those concerns were echoed repeatedly by Abrego Garcia's attorneys in a court filing earlier this month. They noted the number of times that the Trump administration has appeared to have undercut or misrepresented its position before the court in months past, as Xinis attempted to ascertain the status of Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, and what efforts, if any, the Trump administration was making to comply with a court order to facilitate his return. The Trump administration, who reiterated their belief that the case is no longer in her jurisdiction, will almost certainly move to immediately appeal the restraining order to a higher court. 9 Supporters of Kilmar Abrego Garcia rally outside the U.S. District Court for Maryland during a hearing on his case on July 10, 2025 in Greenbelt, Maryland. Getty Images Advertisement The order comes two weeks after an extraordinary, multi-day evidentiary hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, where Xinis sparred with Trump administration officials as she attempted to make sense of their remarks and ascertain their next steps as they look to deport Abrego Garcia to a third country. She said she planned to issue the order before the date that Abrego could possibly be released from federal custody— a request made by lawyers for Abrego Garcia, who asked the court for more time in criminal custody, citing the many countries he might suffer persecution in — and concerns about what legal status he would have in the third country of removal. Without legal status in Mexico, Xinis said, it would likely be a 'quick road' to being deported by the country's government to El Salvador, in violation of the withholding of removal order. And in South Sudan, another country DHS is apparently considering, lawyers for Abrego noted the State Department currently has a Level 4 advisory in place discouraging U.S. travel due to violence and armed conflict. Advertisement 9 A rally sign is seen during a news conference outside the federal courthouse before a hearing for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Wednesday, July 16, 2025, in Nashville, Tennessee. AP Americans who do travel there should 'draft a will' beforehand and designate insurance beneficiaries, according to official guidance on the site. In court, both in July and in earlier hearings, Xinis struggled to keep her own frustration and her incredulity at bay after months of back-and-forth with Justice Department attorneys. Xinis has presided over Abrego Garcia's civil case since March, when he was deported to El Salvador in violation of an existing court order in what Trump administration officials described as an 'administrative error.' Advertisement She spent hours pressing Justice Department officials, over the course of three separate hearings, for details on the government's plans for removing Abrego Garcia to a third country — a process she likened to 'trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.' 9 Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S. legally with a work permit and was erroneously deported to El Salvador, is seen in this handout image obtained by Reuters on April 9, 2025. via REUTERS Xinis chastised the Justice Department this month for presenting a DHS witness to testify under oath about ICE's plans to deport Abrego Garcia, fuming that the official, Thomas Giles, 'knew nothing' about his case, and made no effort to ascertain answers — despite his rank as ICE's third-highest enforcement official. The four hours of testimony he provided was 'fairly stunning,' and 'insulting to her intelligence,' Xinis said. Advertisement Ultimately, the court would not allow the 'unfettered release' of Abrego Garcia pending release from federal custody in Tennessee without 'full-throated assurances' from the Trump administration that it will keep Abrego Garcia in ICE custody for a set period of time and locally, Xinis said, to ensure immigration officials do not 'spirit him away to Nome, Alaska.' During the July hearing, Judge Xinis notably declined to weigh in on the request for sanctions filed by lawyers for Abrego Garcia, but alluded to it in her ruling Wednesday. 'Defendants' defiance and foot-dragging are, to be sure, the subject of a separate sanctions motion,' she said in the ruling — indicating further steps could be taken as she attempts to square months of differing statements from Trump officials. 9 A sign is placed outside the federal courthouse where a hearing for Kilmar Abrego Garcia is taking place, during which a judge will determine the conditions of his release, in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., July 16, 2025. REUTERS 'The Court will not recount this troubling history in detail, other than to note Defendants' persistent lack of transparency with the tribunal adds to why further injunctive relief is warranted,' she said. The Justice Department, after a short recess, declined to agree, prompting Xinis to proceed with her plans for the TRO. Xinis told the court that ultimately, 'much delta' remains between where they ended things in court, and what she is comfortable with, given the government's actions in the past. This was apparent on multiple occasions Friday, when Xinis told lawyers for the Trump administration that she 'isn't buying' their arguments or doesn't 'have faith' in the statements they made — reflecting an erosion of trust that could prove damaging in the longer-term. 9 Supporters rally for Kilmar Abrego Garcia's return from El Salvador prior to a status hearing outside the federal court house in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA 16 May 2025. SHAWN THEW/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock The hearings this week capped months of back-and-forth between Xinis and the Trump administration, as she tried, over the course of 19 weeks, to track the status of a single migrant deported erroneously by the Trump administration to El Salvador—and to trace what attempts, if any, they had made facilitate his return to the U.S. Xinis previously took aim at what she deemed to be the lack of information submitted to the court as part of an expedited discovery process she ordered this year, describing the government's submissions as 'vague, evasive and incomplete'— and which she said demonstrated 'willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.' On Friday, she echoed this view. 'You have taken the presumption of regularity and you've destroyed it, in my view,' Xinis said.
Int'l Business Times
7 days ago
- Politics
- Int'l Business Times
US Judges Order Abrego Garcia Release, Block Immediate Deportation
A Salvadoran man who was wrongly deported and then returned to the United States to face human smuggling charges should be released pending trial and not be immediately taken into immigration custody, federal judges said Wednesday. Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was summarily deported in March along with more than 200 other people to a prison in El Salvador as part of US President Donald Trump's crackdown on migrants. His case has become a key test of Trump's hardline immigration policies. Most of those sent to El Salvador were alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration has designated a foreign terrorist organization. Justice Department lawyers later admitted that Abrego Garcia -- a resident of Maryland who is married to a US citizen -- was wrongly deported due to an "administrative error." Abrego Garcia had been living in the United States under protected legal status since 2019, when a judge ruled he should not be deported because he could be harmed in his home country. He was returned to the United States in June and immediately arrested on human smuggling charges in the southern state of Tennessee. Abrego Garcia's release pending trial has been repeatedly delayed at the request of his lawyers amid fears he would be picked up by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported again. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw in Tennessee ordered Abrego Garcia's release on bail on Wednesday ahead of his January 27 trial date, and a district judge in Maryland simultaneously blocked ICE from immediately taking him into custody. District Judge Paula Xinis said Abrego Garcia should be brought back to Maryland and ordered the administration to provide at least three days notice before attempting to deport him again. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, criticized the ruling. "The fact this unhinged judge is trying to tell ICE they can't arrest (Abrego Garcia)... under federal law is LAWLESS AND INSANE," McLaughlin said on X. It was not immediately clear when Abrego Garcia would be released. Federal prosecutors have opposed his release and warned that he may be deported once again if he is released from custody. Abrego Garcia is charged in Nashville, Tennessee, with smuggling undocumented migrants around the United States between 2016 and 2025. He has pleaded not guilty.
