Washington — An immigration judge in Maryland declined to reopen the immigration case involving Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man who was mistakenly deported to his home country earlier this year and then brought back to the U.S. to face criminal charges, according to The Associated Press.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers had asked an immigration judge in August to reopen the proceedings 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.
The Department of Homeland Security said Abrego Garcia’s final order of removal stands.
“His lawyers tried to fight his removal from the U.S. but one thing is certain, this Salvadoran man is not going to be able to remain in our country. He will never be allowed to prey on innocent Americans again,” the department said in a post to social media.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, had been living in Maryland for more than a decade with his wife and children when he was first taken into federal 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.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration 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 he remained detained for several weeks because of concerns that Abrego Garcia would be swiftly taken into immigration custody following his release and deported.
Abrego Garcia left criminal confinement in late August, but was arrested by immigration authorities days later when he went for an interview with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore. He filed a petition challenging the legality of his arrest and detention, and a judge in Maryland temporarily blocked the Trump administration from removing Abrego Garcia from the U.S.
He had been held at a detention center in Virginia but was transferred to a facility in Pennsylvania last month.
Abrego Garcia applied for asylum in 2019, but an immigration judge said he waited too long to do so and denied the bid. Under federal immigration law, an asylum-seeker has to file an application within one year of their arrival to the U.S. The immigration judge said in the 2019 decision that Abrego Garcia waited seven years to file a request for asylum.
But the judge, David Jones, said Abrego Garica provided “credible responses” to questions and provided “substantial documentation” bolstering his claim for asylum, including affidavits from family members describing threats by a local gang.
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