Abrego Garcia's attorneys ask to reopen his immigration case to seek asylum [View all]

Source: ABC

Attorneys for wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia have filed an emergency motion to reopen his immigration case to seek asylum, according to a court filing Tuesday.

Abrego Garcia, who was rearrested Monday in Maryland after he was released Friday from criminal custody in Tennessee, is currently being held in a detention center in Virginia, where the federal government is temporarily blocked from deporting him pending further proceedings in a habeas case.

"At 5pm yesterday, Petitioner filed a motion to reopen before an immigration judge to seek asylum in the United States," his attorneys said in a proposed scheduling order filed on Tuesday. "Petitioner proposes that the parties allow the immigration judge to resolve that motion within two weeks from today."

According to the emergency motion to reopen the case, his attorneys argue that because Abrego Garcia was deported and then brought back to the U.S., he is now eligible to apply for asylum within one year of his last entry into the U.S.

The motion asks the immigration court in Baltimore to "immediately" order a stay of removal to afford Abrego Garcia "an opportunity to seek protection from persecution and torture in Uganda," where the government has indicated he could be sen

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/abrego-garcias-attorneys-blast-government-unilaterally-rearresting/story