By LEA SKENE and BEN FINLEY, Associated Press

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A federal judge in Maryland scolded the Trump administration on Friday for its “utter refusal” to detail its deportation plans for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, including where the government plans to send him and whether he’ll get a chance to fight his expulsion before he’s whisked away.

The Salvadoran national could be released from a Tennessee jail as soon as next Wednesday to await trial on human smuggling charges. U.S. immigration officials have said they would immediately detain him and begin deportation proceedings.

“I’m deeply concerned that if there’s not some restraint on you, Mr. Abrego will be on another plane to another country,” U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis told Justice Department lawyers on Friday.

Supporters of Kilmar Abrego Garcia rally outside of the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., where a hearing was scheduled to be held on returning him to Maryland, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Abrego Garcia became a flashpoint over Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration policies when he was wrongfully deported to his native El Salvador in March. That expulsion violated a U.S. immigration judge’s order in 2019 that shields Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he likely faces threats of gang violence there.

The administration claimed that Abrego Garcia was in the MS-13 gang, although he wasn’t charged and has repeatedly denied the allegation. Facing mounting pressure and a U.S. Supreme Court order, the Trump administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. last month to face the smuggling charges, which his attorneys have called “preposterous.”

The administration argues now that Abrego Garcia is a danger to the community and can be deported before his trial to a country other than El Salvador.

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have asked Xinis to order the government to send him to Maryland if he’s released in Tennessee, a request that aims to prevent his expulsion before trial.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, speaks to reporters after a hearing at the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

In court on Friday, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys asked for at least a 72-hour hold that would prevent immediate deportation. Attorney Andrew Rossman called it the “critical bottom-line protection” needed to prevent a potentially egregious violation of due process rights.

Xinis didn’t rule from the bench Friday, but said she’ll issue an order before a federal judge in Tennessee holds a hearing on Wednesday to discuss Abrego Garcia’s release.

The smuggling case stems from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding, during Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers without any luggage. Police in Tennessee suspected human smuggling, but he was allowed to drive on.

This courtroom sketch depicts, from left, Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura; Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Cesar Abrego Garcia, Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s brother in court during Garcia’s detention hearing on Wednesday, June 25, 2025, in Nashville, Tenn. (Diego Fishburn via AP)

Abrego Garcia lived and worked in Maryland for more than a decade, working construction and raising a family. His American wife is suing the administration over his wrongful deportation in Xinis’s court in Maryland.

Given the history of the case, Xinis raised concerns on Friday that the government will take action without properly informing Abrego Garcia and his attorneys until it’s too late.

“The point is the utter refusal of your clients to engage in any conversation about what’s going to happen on Wednesday despite the extraordinary facts of this case,” Xinis told Justice Department attorneys.

Thomas Giles, an assistant director for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, testified previously that Mexico or South Sudan may be willing to accept Abrego Garcia. But he said the Trump administration hasn’t decided on anything yet.

Xinis on Friday criticized Giles’ testimony, describing it as garden variety information that lacked specifics. She also expressed concern that Abrego Garcia could be deported to a nation that would just send him back to his native country.

Sarmad Khojasteh, a Justice Department attorney, declined to discuss in detail what could happen. But he said one possibility is the initiation of deportation proceedings to a third country. Another is revisiting the immigration judge’s 2019 order that shielded Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador.

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When Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported, he was first held in a notorious megaprison. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers recently alleged in court documents that he was beaten and subjected to psychological torture. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele denied the allegations.

Regarding deportation to a “third country,” Khojasteh told the judge that people are first told what country they’re being sent to, then allowed to express fear of going there. If the fear is deemed credible, the person gets a hearing before an immigration judge.

Khojasteh declined to discuss what happens after that, calling the line of questioning “like six layers deep in speculation.”

“These things haven’t happened yet,” he said. “The controversy’s not ripe.”

He said Abrego Garcia would be treated like any other immigrant under the circumstances.

But Xinis sharply rejected that notion. She said the case has already received so much attention that she can’t imagine it will be subject to a routine decision-making process among immigration officials.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Friday called a special election for the Hennepin and Anoka County state House seat left vacant following the assassination of Brooklyn Park Rep. Melissa Hortman last month.

Hortman, the former House speaker and leader of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor caucus in the House, represented House District 34B, a district that includes Brooklyn Park, as well as parts of Champlin and Coon Rapids.

A special primary election for the seat is now scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 12. The special election is set to take place on Tuesday, Sept. 16.

Candidates can begin submitting paperwork to run starting July 15. Affidavits of candidacy and nominating petitions can be submitted to the Anoka and Hennepin county auditors or the Minnesota Secretary of State until July 22.

Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were photographed Friday, June 13, 2025, at the annual Humphrey-Mondale Dinner in Minneapolis. (Courtesy of Minnesota House DFL Caucus)

House District 34B has been without a representative for nearly a month.

In the early morning hours of June 14, Hortman and her husband, Mark, were shot at their home by a gunman who was reportedly targeting state lawmakers. State Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were shot at their home in Champlin and survived.

Hortman was first elected to the House in 2004 and was in her 11th term in the Legislature. She was elected speaker of the House in 2019, when the DFL took a majority in the House.

Hortman lost the speakership in 2025 after the 2024 election resulted in a House tied 67-67 between the parties.

The House is now split 67-66 between the parties, with Republicans at a one-seat majority.

Hortman had handily won reelection in District 34B and past districts that covered a similar footprint. In 2024, she won reelection with 63% of the vote.

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By AMY TAXIN, DAMIAN DOVARGANES and OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press

CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — Federal immigration authorities said Friday they arrested about 200 immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally in raids a day earlier on two California cannabis farm sites. Protesters engaged in a tense standoff with authorities at one of the farms during the operation.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that authorities executed criminal search warrants in Carpinteria and Camarillo, California, on Thursday. They arrested immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally and there were also at least 10 immigrant children on site, the statement said.

Four U.S. citizens were arrested for “assaulting or resisting officers,” the department said. Authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of one person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents. At least one worker was hospitalized with grave injuries.

Federal immigration agents toss tear gas at protesters during a raid in the agriculture area of Camarillo, Calif., Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Owen Baker)

During the raid, crowds of people gathered outside Glass House Farms at the Camarillo location to demand information about their relatives and protest immigration enforcement. A chaotic scene emerged outside the farm that grows tomatoes, cucumbers and cannabis as authorities clad in helmets and uniforms faced off with the demonstrators. Acrid green and white billowing smoke then forced community members to retreat.

On Friday, about two dozen people waited outside the Camarillo farm to collect the cars of their loved ones and speak to managers about what happened. Relatives of Jaime Alanis, who worked picking tomatoes for 10 years, said he called his wife in Mexico during the raid to tell her immigration agents had arrived and that he was hiding with others inside the farm.

“The next thing we heard was that he was in the hospital,” Juan Duran, Alanis’ brother-in-law, said in Spanish, his voice breaking.

Arturo Rangel hugs Judith Ramos whose father works at the greenhouse in the background as federal immigration agents block access during a raid in the agriculture area of Camarillo, Calif., Thursday, July 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Owen Baker)

It was not immediately clear how Alanis was injured. A doctor told the family that others who brought Alanis to the hospital said he had fallen from the roof of a building.

Alanis had a broken neck, fractured skull and a rupture in an artery that pumps blood to the brain, said his niece Yesenia, who didn’t want to share her last name for fear of reprisal.

Maria Servin, 68, said her son Rafael Ortiz has worked at the farm for 18 years and was helping build a greenhouse when federal immigrations agents arrived Thursday.

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Servin said she spoke to her son, who is undocumented, after hearing of the raid and offered to pick him up. “He said not to come because they were surrounded and there was even a helicopter. That was the last time I spoke to him,” Servin, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, said in Spanish.

She said she went to the farm anyway Thursday, but agents were shooting tear gas and rubber bullets, and she decided it wasn’t safe to stay.

On Friday, she returned with her daughter and was told her son had been arrested. The family still doesn’t know where he is being held or how to contact him. “I regret 1,000 times that I didn’t help him get his documents,” Servin said.

Glass House said in a statement that the company does not violate “applicable hiring practices” and does not employ children.

Taxin reported from Orange County, Calif. and Rodriguez reported from San Francisco.

By Raisa Habersham, Miami Herald

MIAMI — On Sunday, two men stood in front of Alligator Alcatraz to show support for the detention center. One held a sign that read, “Welcome to Paradise. Don’t feed the animals.”

The jokes about alligators attacking immigrants while in detention have been casually tossed around by President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis and conservative and far-right influencers. The Florida GOP and Attorney General James Uthmeier are cashing in on “Alligator Alcatraz” merchandise, some that prominently feature alligators, to fundraise for campaigns. The ‘gators, in this case, are the good guys. The folks inside the detention center, no matter their story or status, are tempting treats for Florida’s newly deputized reptilian law enforcement.

The mocking of immigrant detainees harks back to “the worst parts of our history” when similar jokes and tropes, such as “gator bait,” were used to dehumanize Black people and desensitize people to the harm and violence inflicted upon them, says ACLU Florida Executive Director Bacardi Jackson.

The “gator bait” trope, which has been well-documented by the Jim Crow Museum in Big Rapids, Michican, implied that Black people don’t deserve protection against the hazards of nature. In the museum’s archive are articles detailing how Black babies, referred to by the slur pickaninnies, were used as bait to lure and kill Florida alligator.

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The National Museum of African American History and Culture’s archive features postcards depicting Black children sitting near swamps to lure alligators. And the same disregard for humanity is now being applied to detainees who will be housed in the detention center, historian Marvin Dunn told the Miami Herald. “Basically, the same kind of anger, the same kind of resentment is now being transferred to immigrants,” he said.

“These kinds of tropes and jokes were made as a way to keep people from thinking of Black people as human. And now, when we are in this situation where what is happening to immigrant people, who are largely Black and brown people, it’s the same exact thing. It’s the dehumanization,” said Jackson. “It’s the desensitizing [of] folks in the hopes of not having people rise up against such cruelty and treatment of others.”

Jackson said when people see political leaders make light of real danger to people, it gives others permission to be “callous, cold and hateful,” similar to when Gov. Ron Desantis told drivers it was OK to hit protesters during the recent No Kings protests against Trump if they felt they were being endangered.

“You have a right to flee for your safety, and so if you drive off and you hit one of these people, that’s their fault for impinging on you,” DeSantis told a podcast last month.

“It’s the invitation for others to see people as less than human,” Jackson said. “That one creates the environment where a government can come up with more cruel and harmful policies.”

Dunn said the term “gator bait” never left the lexicon, particularly in the South. White nationalists use the term all the time and it is an “inside” joke among certain groups. “Gator bait” entered the national conversation in 2020 amid George Floyd protests nationwide when University of Florida president Kent Fuchs issued a statement saying the university would no longer do their “Gator bait” cheer, which involved fans doing the Gator chomp with their arms to taunt opponents.

Concern about the treatment and conditions the detainees were facing at the detention center caused several state officials to appear outside Alligator Alcatraz and demand entry last week.

Florida state Sen. Shevrin Jones was among five elected state officials who attempted to enter the facility but were shut out. He will return Saturday during a scheduled visit for state legislators. Jones said he’s refusing to call the site “Alligator Alcatraz,” and questions the treatment of immigrants who are kept at the facility.

“It’s baffling to me that individuals have made this a Democrat or Republican issue when we’re talking about humanity and ensuring that individuals are being treated humanely,” said Jones, a Democrat who represents Miami Gardens and other areas in northern Miami-Dade. “It has turned so political where now individuals are justifying inhumane treatment for human beings.”

Jackson said the dehumanization of one group opens the door for more harm to come to everyone.

“Silence is consent. We have to pay attention to what’s happening,” she said.

©2025 Miami Herald. Visit at miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.