Abrego Garcia to remain in US for high-stakes 'vindictive' prosecution hearing

The update comes as Abrego Garcia's dueling criminal and civil cases have emerged as a major flashpoint in the Trump administration's broader immigration crackdown. Two separate federal judges in Tennessee and Maryland are currently weighing Abrego's current legal status, and whether the Justice Department acted with "selective" and "vindictive" prosecution in bringing a criminal case against him earlier this year. 

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw is currently weighing a request from Abrego Garcia's lawyers to subpoena the second-highest-ranking Justice Department official, Todd Blanche, for testimony in that hearing. He also ordered the Justice Department to produce various government documents and communications stemming from Abrego's case, including on its decision to open an investigation into the 2022 traffic stop earlier this year.

The proposed schedule was submitted jointly Tuesday morning to Xinis, the federal judge in Maryland who issued an order in August keeping Abrego Garcia in the U.S. for now. She later memorialized the proposed dates in a minute order, including ordering both parties to appear back in her court on Nov. 21 for a motions hearing.

Senior Trump administration officials told her Monday that they planned to deport Abrego Garcia to the third country of Liberia as early as Friday, Oct. 31, regardless of the status of his ongoing criminal case in Tennessee. "If there were no prohibition, we would remove him on Friday," Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign told her. It is unclear what assurances, if any, the Liberian government has provided regarding Abrego Garcia's status in that country or whether it has agreed not to return him to his home country of El Salvador, in keeping with a 2019 court order.

Justice Department officials reiterated on Monday they have no plans to allow Abrego Garcia to remain in the U.S. to face criminal charges in Tennessee, where he was indicted by a federal grand jury in May on two charges related to immigrant-smuggling. Both charges stemmed from a 2022 traffic stop. 

But the new proposed briefing schedule submitted by the Justice Department Tuesday suggests their own time frame for Abrego Garcia's removal has changed yet again. 

The Justice Department declined to comment on what, if anything, prompted it to update their proposed schedule and allow him to remain in the U.S. for the evidentiary hearing. 

Instead, the proposed schedule suggests brief deadlines for Nov. 7 and Nov. 14, and asks that Judge Xinis review them by the third week of November, at the earliest. 

"Government employees have made extrajudicial statements that are troubling, especially where many of them are exaggerated if not simply inaccurate," Judge Crenshaw said on Monday. 

In another notable update, Crenshaw ordered the Justice Department to provide the court with communications regarding the government's decision to prosecute the criminal case against Abrego Garcia, and what "factual circumstances" motivated the change in the government's position. 

Crenshaw said Monday that he will review these documents privately before next week's evidentiary hearing kicks off in Nashville, and will later rule on what information the Justice Department must turn over to Abrego Garcia's lawyers before then.