There is already a pretty good chance that the entire indictment will be dismissed by Judge Crenshaw, as an outcome of that hearing. We shall see.
Here's the latest memo of law from Mr. Hecker's team (for Abrego), and a bit:
. . .In 2019, Mr. Abrego secured an order from an immigration court granting him withholding of removal to El Salvador. . . .
The government never appealed the withholding decision, nor did it seek to remove him to a third country at the time. . . . Mr. Abrego was [then] released from ICE custody on an order of supervision. . . .
Pursuant to that order of supervision, Mr. Abrego had the government’s “permission to live in Maryland,” and he also received authorization to work in the United States. Id. Mr. Abrego was required to check in periodically at the ICE Baltimore Field Office, and he “remained in compliance with the ICE Supervision Order at the time he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador.” Id.
On March 12, 2025, ICE agents pulled over Mr. Abrego while he was “driving home from work with his young son in the car,” and detained him. Abrego Garcia, 777 F. Supp. 3d at 508. The government has not proffered a basis for that traffic stop. And “[t]he officers had no warrant for his arrest and no lawful basis to take him into custody.” Id. “[T]hey told him only that his status had changed,” id. (quotations omitted), which was untrue. Mr. Abrego’s supervised release had not been revoked through the appropriate channels, see 8 C.F.R. § 241.4(l)(2), and his withholding order remained in place as the government had not commenced proceedings to reopen his case or terminate withholding of removal. . . .
Indeed, in connection with Mr. Abrego’s civil case, the government has acknowledged it had “no legal authority to arrest him” and “no justification to detain him,” Abrego Garcia, 777 F. Supp. 3d at 507, as demonstrated in this exchange between the Court and counsel for the government:
The Court: [W]hat document got this process started? There is no warrant for his arrest by an order of removal. There is no statement of probable cause. There’s no charge. There’s no report that says that anyone saw Mr. Abrego Garcia doing anything illegal or criminal. So what is the actual document that gave these officers the authority to start this process?
Mr. Reuveni: That is not in the record, and the government has not put that into the record. And that’s the best I can do. . . .
[So, after being detained in March 2025,] there was no translator present for this [in-custody] interview, and neither agent spoke Spanish well enough to translate for Mr. Abrego. The agents did not read Mr. Abrego his Miranda rights in Spanish, proceeding instead to ask him several questions in English. On multiple occasions, Mr. Abrego recalls telling the agents that he did not understand what they were saying. On such occasions, one of the agents, who did not speak Spanish well, would attempt to translate what the other agent was saying into Spanish. After the agents asked their questions, he recalls the agents asking him to sign a document. . . he recalls feeling panicked and pressured to sign, under the mistaken belief that by signing the document, he would be released from custody and be permitted to go home. (Id. ¶ 88). Under no circumstances did Mr. Abrego understand that he was about to be removed from the United States. . . .
As we all know he spent nearly the next three months in a Salvadoran torture prison -- the specific circumstance his 2019 still-in-force orders forbid the government from imposing upon him. Damn. Damn. Damn. Out.
नमस्ते
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