What's next in the case that symbolizes Trump's immigration crackdown?
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Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a name that has become near synonymous with the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Abrego Garcia, that is the Maryland father. The man who became a flashpoint in the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration. Who was mistakenly deported. Erroneously deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Abrego Garcia was arrested by ICE agents on March 12th as he was leaving his job in Baltimore.

And in the days and months that followed, the fate of the 29-year-old father of three was in the hands of the Trump administration and the president of El Salvador. At the time of his arrest, the Trump administration alleged he was an active member of the Salvadoran gang MS-13.

He was a member of MS-13, and he was illegally in our country. His family and his legal team deny this. He was deported to a Supermax prison in El Salvador, this despite a protective order that he should remain in the U.S. And then, less than a month after his arrest, a federal judge and then the Supreme Court ruled the government should facilitate Abrego Garcia's return to the U.S. Justice Sotomayor wrote, quote,

To this day, the government has cited no basis in law for Abrego Garcia's warrantless arrest, his removal to El Salvador or his confinement in a Salvadorian prison. Nor could it. This case is not about this particular individual, Abrego Garcia. It's about his constitutional rights. That's Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen, Abrego Garcia's home state senator.

He flew to El Salvador to visit his constituent and advocate for his return. And if the Trump administration can trample over his rights, they can trample over the rights of anybody who lives in the United States of America. Now, nearly three months after Abrego Garcia was sent to a prison in another country, he is back on U.S. soil. Consider this. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is back. But what's next? Coming up, we talk to his lawyer.

From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

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It's Consider This from NPR. Kilmar Abrego-Garcia is sitting in a prison in Tennessee held on federal charges related to transporting migrants without legal status. His attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moschenberg, saw him Wednesday for the first time in this saga. He talked to me about that meeting and what might come next for his client. How's your client doing?

His head is spinning. I mean, he's really surprised. He doesn't understand what's going on. He understood that his case was over and won in 2019 when the immigration judge issued him an order of protection and allowed him to be released from ICE custody. He got a work permit. He was renewing it year after year. He understood that his problems were behind him. And then all of a sudden, one day out of nowhere...

He gets pulled over in his car, taken into custody, finds himself in El Salvador, the one country where the judge had ordered he could not be sent. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he's meeting with the US senator. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he's being flown back to the United States on a private jet and is being told that his name and his face are

known around the world, it's almost like one of those movies where someone wakes up out of a coma. I was going to ask to what extent he is aware that he has become something of a household name in the U.S. Yeah, he didn't have an understanding because he was held completely incommunicado in both of the prisons that he was in in El Salvador. That is one of the principal human rights violations is that there's no access to legal counsel, not even a phone call. We sent a lawyer down three times to try to visit with him and that lawyer was not allowed to visit with him. Yesterday was the first time you had met him?

It was. After, you know, three months of working on his case, it was the first time I actually got to sit down and meet him face to face. So you raise a couple of points that I want to follow up on. One, that for months the administration had insisted they couldn't bring him back. When did you learn he was being returned to the U.S.? Yeah, I mean, the events on Friday made clear that that was never true. I learned it from ABC News, just like the rest of the nation. You did?

You did not get advance notice from the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, anybody? We did not. I mean, they were digging their heels in. They filed a motion in court insisting that they were powerless to bring him back days after the indictment. So clearly they already had the wheels in motion. And meanwhile, they were still telling the district court in Maryland, sorry, you know, we're powerless. There's nothing we can do here.

His case is unfolding, as people may be getting a sense. There's a number of different cases, civil and criminal, proceeding. Among the fights unfolding around your client is the question of whether he should stay in that prison in Tennessee as he awaits trial. I know a number of other attorneys working on his behalf have asked a judge to release him pre-trial. The government is saying no and arguing he's a flight risk. Is he a flight risk?

This is a man who's fighting to stay in the United States, right? He's not trying to go anywhere. Meanwhile, you are arguing that officials in the Trump administration should face contempt proceedings, that the administration engaged, and I'm quoting, in an elaborate all-of-government effort to defy court orders.

Mr. Sandoval-Moshenberg, the administration would argue they have now complied with court orders. And I'm quoting the Homeland Security Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs, Tricia McLaughlin, who was on NPR this week. She said Kilmore Arbrego-Garcia is now facing a grand jury in Tennessee. So she said the facts on the ground have changed. So the Supreme Court ordered that the government...

ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador. That's a direct quote from the Supreme Court's unanimous nine to zero opinion. That is clearly not what happened on Friday. To ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador, he needs to be returned to the state of Maryland.

And what is the point at this point in the proceedings of going after the Trump administration with contempt proceedings? I think that when lawyers lie to the judge and when lawyers lie under oath at a deposition and when government officials lie under oath at a deposition, they need to be held to account. Whether or not you agree that they ultimately complied with the judge's order, which they didn't, but even if they belatedly do, that does not excuse them.

two months of ignoring court orders while a man is locked up behind bars in a foreign country, those things need to be held to account. What do you see as the broader stakes here for everyone who lives in the U.S.? The government has decided to make this individual into the devil incarnate. Kilmer Abrego Garcia never chose to be the center of a nationwide, you know,

cause celeb, right? The government all along has been the one that have chosen to do that.

They made a simple mistake. It happens from time to time. But instead of simply fixing that mistake, maybe an apology would have been nice, but I never expected that. Instead of simply fixing the mistake, they decided to go absolutely nuclear on him. And that continues today. And what that shows is that can happen to anyone. If it can happen to him, it can happen to any one of us. Simon Sandoval-Moschenberg is one of the attorneys representing Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Thank you.

My pleasure. This episode was produced by Erica Ryan and Lauren Hodges with audio engineering by Tiffany Vericastro. It was edited by Jeanette Woods and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. ♪

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