President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to deport migrant Kilmar Abrego for a second time, but does not plan to send him back to El Salvador, where he was wrongly deported in March, a lawyer for the administration told a judge on Thursday.
The deportation will not happen until after Abrego is tried in federal court on migrant smuggling charges, a White House spokesperson said.
“He will face the full force of the American justice system – including serving time in American prison for the crimes he’s committed,” the spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, wrote in a post on X.
Sean Hecker, a lawyer for Abrego in the criminal case, accused the White House and the Justice Department of making “contradictory statements.”
“No one has any idea whether there are concrete plans for our client, or what those plans are,” Hecker said in a statement.
Earlier on Thursday, Justice Department lawyer Jonathan Guynn said during a hearing in federal court in Maryland that the United States does not have “imminent plans” to remove Abrego, a Salvadoran national, from the United States.
If deported, Abrego would be sent to a third country and not El Salvador, Guynn said. He did not name the country.
Abrego was deported and imprisoned in El Salvador in March despite a 2019 judicial decision barring him from being sent there because of a risk of persecution.
The Trump administration brought Abrego back to the United States this month to face federal criminal charges accusing him of transporting migrants living illegally in the United States. He has pleaded not guilty.
The case of Abrego, 29, who had been living in Maryland with his wife, a U.S. citizen, and their young son, has become a flashpoint over Trump’s hardline immigration agenda.
The federal judge overseeing Abrego’s criminal case ordered him released ahead of trial as early as Friday, but the Trump administration has said it plans to immediately take him into immigration custody.
Abrego’s lawyers have asked that he be kept in Maryland and that the Justice Department, which is prosecuting the criminal case, and the Department of Homeland Security, which handles immigration proceedings, ensure he is not deported while the criminal case is pending.
Federal judges in Maryland, where Abrego is suing over the March deportation, and Tennessee, where criminal charges were filed, are both yet to rule on Abrego’s requests.
