By Dietrich Knauth and Luc Cohen
(Reuters) -Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March and returned on Friday, said their client should be set free while the U.S. Department of Justice pursues new criminal charges against him.
The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday had asked a federal judge in Tennessee to detain Abrego Garcia while he is prosecuted on newly-filed charges of transporting illegal immigrants within the United States.
The motion filed on Wednesday said Abrego Garcia had already been imprisoned without due process and he posed no danger to the community and no flight risk.
“Mr. Abrego Garcia asks the Court for what he has been denied the past several months – due process,” Abrego Garcia’s attorneys wrote in Wednesday’s court filing. “Mr. Abrego Garcia must be released.”
Abrego Garcia on March 15 was deported to El Salvador, despite a 2019 immigration court ruling that he should not be sent there because he could be persecuted by gangs, and the incident has become a flashpoint for Republican President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration policies.
The Trump administration has said Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang, an accusation his lawyers deny.
Trump administration officials have accused the judiciary of interfering with the executive branch’s ability to conduct foreign policy, and they portrayed Abrego Garcia’s criminal indictment as vindication for their approach to deportations.
A grand jury in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 21 indicted him on charges of transporting undocumented migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border to locations around the country.
Abrego Garcia remains detained pending his next court hearing on Friday. His lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg has called the criminal charges “fantastical” and a “kitchen sink” of allegations.
(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth and Luc Cohen; Editing by Leigh Jones and Chris Reese)
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