A federal judge ruled on Wednesday morning that Kilmar Ábrego García cannot be deported until at least early October, according to CNN.
The outlet also reported that US District Judge Paula Xinis, who is presiding over the case, scheduled an evidentiary hearing for 6 October, and said that she intends to have Trump administration officials testify about the government’s efforts to re-deport Ábrego.
At the same hearing, Ábrego’s lawyers informed the court that the 30-year-old plans to seek asylum in the United States, according to the Associated Press.
Ábrego’s case has drawn national attention since he was wrongfully deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador in March.
Following widespread pressure, including from the supreme court, the Trump administration returned him to the US in June. However, upon his return, he immediately faced criminal charges related to human smuggling, allegations that his lawyers have rejected as “preposterous”.
He was released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday, while awaiting trial.
But over the weekend, the Trump administration announced new plans to deport him to Uganda.
Then on Monday, Ábrego was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) during a scheduled immigration check-in in Baltimore, which was one of the conditions of his release.
He is currently being held in a detention center in Virginia.
Ábrego’s legal team swiftly filed a lawsuit on Monday, challenging both his current detention and his potential deportation to Uganda. In court filings, they argued that the government is retaliating against Ábrego for challenging his deportation to El Salvador.
“The only reason he was taken into detention was to punish him” said Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney representing Ábrego, on Monday. “To punish him for exercising his constitutional rights.”
Later on Monday, Xinis issued a ruling, temporarily barring the government from deporting Ábrego until at least Friday.
Ábrego entered the US without authorization around 2011 as a teenager. According to court documents, he was fleeing gang violence.
In 2019, a federal court granted him protection from deportation to El Salvador. But despite that ruling, in March, he was mistakenly deported there by the Trump administration.
In court documents in April, the Trump administration admitted that Ábrego’s deportation was an “administrative error”.
But since then, Trump administration officials have repeatedly accused him of being affiliated with the MS-13 gang, a claim Ábrego and his family have denied.
