FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA — FAIRFAX, Virginia (AP) — Kelmar Abrego Garcia His lawyer told The Associated Press on Monday that his client was not an activist and did not choose to become involved in what has become one of the most contentious immigration cases of the Trump administration.
But as he relives the few days he has had with his family since he was wrongly sent to an El Salvador prison in March, his lawyer said he remains hopeful of a fair resolution to his case.
“He’s been through a lot, and he’s still fighting,” his lawyer, Simon Sandoval Moschenburg, said during an interview with the Associated Press after the Abrego Garcia case. By court order to release Arrest last week. “What he can fight for is limited by the law and the superpower of the United States government, but he still fights.”
Abrego Garcia’s wrongful deportation to El Salvador helped galvanize opposition to President Donald Trump’s decisions. Immigration policies. He was detained in a notorious place Brutal prison There is despite no criminal record.
US officials claimed that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS-13 gang, an allegation he denies and has never been charged. He was later charged with human smuggling. Accusations against his lawyer They have been described as preposterous and vindictive.
The Trump administration made efforts to return him to the United States but ultimately complied. Since then, his case has been a twisty turn of the legal files and wrangling that led to Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, being released from detention once since March — and that time only for a weekend — while the government Prosecuting smuggling charges against him and announced plans to deport him to a number of African countries.
A federal district court judge in Maryland last week ordered his release and is currently barring the government from detaining him again until a hearing in his case can be held, possibly as early as this week, Sandoval Moschenburg said.
The Department of Homeland Security criticized the judge’s decision to release him last week and vowed to appeal, calling the ruling “naked judicial activism” by a judge appointed under the Obama administration. The Department of Homeland Security on Monday declined to comment on this story. Citing restrictions on public comment A judge in Tennessee put it in place.
Abrego Garcia has a number of paths forward, Sandoval Moschenburg said. He said he believes his client has a strong case for seeking asylum. His original asylum application in 2019 was rejected because he submitted his application one year after the deadline. But Sandoval Mochenberg said the government essentially reset the clock by transporting him to El Salvador and then bringing him back.
After the alleged abuse Sandoval Moschenberg said Abrego Garcia endured in El Salvador this year, he thought he would have a “solid” asylum case. But, citing the twists and turns of his case and how he became a symbol of the administration’s prosecution of immigrants, he worries about his chances of getting a fair trial in immigration court.
“I think they’ve really shown they’re willing to stack the deck,” Sandoval-Moschenburg said.
Abrego Garcia can also apply for a green card because he is married to a US citizen. But Sandoval-Moshenberg said that would require obtaining a waiver from the government, and the lawyer doubts he could get one.
Or he could continue to seek deportation to Costa Rica, Sandoval Mochenberg said, a country that has offered to let him enter as a refugee and live and work legally. The lawyer said he would not be returned to El Salvador.
But he also believes the government will continue to fight that option.
“They’re focused on beating him. They’re focused on punishing him. They’re focused on making him miserable. I think Costa Rica is not miserable enough,” he said.
Sandoval Moshenberg said he spent some time with Abrego Garcia and his family over the weekend to talk about the government’s next steps and what Abrego Garcia might want for his future.
“There are a lot of different ways things could go,” he said. “A lot of it depends on how dirty the government wants to play.”
Sandoval Mochenberg said he believed that if the government was willing to deport him to Costa Rica, his client would accept it, although he emphasized that the decision was up to him.
He said Abrego Garcia and his legal team would not consider this justice – which for him means staying with his family in the United States. But Sandoval-Moshenberg said that given everything he faced and “the fact that they seem willing to use unlimited prosecutorial resources against him, deportation to Costa Rica is an acceptable outcome for him.”
Sandoval Moschenburg also stressed that there is one place Abrego Garcia does not want to go.
“His first priority is not to end up back in CECOT,” Sandoval Mochenberg said, referring to the prison where his client is being held in El Salvador. Sandoval Mochenberg said Abrego Garcia was tortured there, something authorities in El Salvador denied and the AP could not independently verify.
“His first priority is to avoid being sent back to that prison.”
Sandoval-Moshenberg said he had no idea why the government chose the Abrego Garcia case to fight hate with all its might.
“This is not a case where he’s an activist, like an immigrant rights activist, or he’s been persecuted by the government because of his pro-Palestinian rhetoric or something like that,” the lawyer said. “He’s a random guy.”
The whole process of deportation, imprisonment and return “was kind of really strange, outside the realm of global experience for him,” Sandoval Mochenberg said.
The judge temporarily prevented the Trump administration from detaining Abrego Garcia last Friday until the next court hearing.
Although no date has been set, it could happen as early as this week, Sandoval-Moshenberg said, noting that the case has been a struggle for Abrigo Garcia and his family.
“The ground beneath his feet, just one earthquake after another,” he said.
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Lawler reported from Nashville, Tennessee.