GREENBELT, Md. — Maryland sheet metal apprentice and SMART union member Kilmar Abrego García could face immediate deportation if he’s released from a Nashville, Tennessee, jail, where he’s being held prior to facing government frame-up charges of human smuggling.
A federal court hearing there July 16, as the Militant goes to press, may also determine whether he’s released from custody while awaiting trial.
His family and friends, along with members of the immigrant rights group CASA and fellow union members, have been fighting to win his freedom since his arrest and March 15 deportation to El Salvador, and then his arrest after his return to the U.S. June 6. Their efforts are also aimed at defending the rights of thousands of others who face deportation and the government’s assault on their constitutionally protected right to due process.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis July 10 ordered Thomas Giles, a top Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, to testify about the government’s plans for Abrego García if he’s released from custody. Giles claimed there was no way to answer that question in advance, but admitted he could be deported to either Mexico or South Sudan.
“You violated the law undisputedly,” Xinis admonished Giles, when Abrego García was deported in March despite a federal court order barring his removal. “But now you promise that you won’t do it again without showing how you aren’t going to do it again.”
Abrego García’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, pressed Xinis to order the government to grant Abrego García 72 hours to challenge any new deportation order, and also to return him to Maryland where his family lives. In his March deportation he was not given written notice that he had a right to challenge the order or enough time to do so, like many other workers who have been summarily thrown out of the country.
“I’m deeply concerned that if there’s no restraint on you,” Xinis told Justice Department lawyers, “Mr. Abrego will be on another plane to another country because that’s what you’ve done in other cases.”
When Abrego García was returned to the U.S. he was immediately arrested and hit with trumped-up felony charges arising from a traffic stop in 2022. These include over 100 counts of interstate human smuggling for financial gain between 2016 and 2025 and allegations he was a member of the MS-13 gang. In fact, he fled El Salvador to escape escalating gang threats against his family.
The frame-up is based on a statement by a government witness who has been promised charges he faces will be dropped and he’ll be given legal status in the U.S. in exchange for his testimony.
Abrego García cannot attend his own hearings here because he is held in the prison in Nashville. At the request of his own attorneys, he is kept imprisoned to protect him from being seized by ICE. He has pled not guilty but with the threat of immediate deportation he’s being denied the right to confront his accusers.
Along with more than 200 other immigrants, Abrego García was picked up and deported to El Salvador in March when President Donald Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, used previously only in times of shooting wars. On May 16 the U.S. Supreme Court put a hold on the government’s use of the act.
‘Keep fighting deportations’
“When we are loud about the egregious actions of the Trump administration, that’s when they backtrack or get weaker,” Ama Frimpong, legal director of CASA, which is helping lead Abrego García’s defense, told the Militant July 14.
The government’s attack on him, and on other immigrants, “is an attack on the working class,” she said. “The targeting of workers at some job sites shows you that, too. Pay attention, answer what the government is doing clearly and keep fighting.”
Frimpong, an immigrant from Ghana, was preparing for a press conference at CASA’s Hyattsville office to protest moves to end Temporary Protective Status for an estimated 17,000 people from Afghanistan and Cameroon.
CASA had filed an appeal against the Department of Homeland Security decision to revoke TPS. It grants legal status and work authorization to workers from designated countries where they face conditions that make it dangerous for them to return home. Immediate action is needed for Afghans with TPS protection because their status expired July 14.
“Oui, nous pouvons!” (Yes, we can!) chanted 25 people from Cameroon, Afghanistan, Congo, Chad and other countries at the press conference.
“We are not just here to speak, but to defend our dignity. To the administration we say you can try to erase protection, but you cannot erase our power. We will not back down,” said Marie, who chaired the press conference. Speakers were introduced by their first names only to avoid government victimization.
“If Cameroon was a safe place, I would be there taking care of my grandchildren,” said Amos. “TPS is not a privilege, it’s a lifeline. It is not safe there. For some of us, the airport would be the end.”