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(NEW YORK) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s legal team asked a judge at a hearing Friday to order that he not be removed from the United States without at least 72 hours notice should he be released on bond from detention in Tennessee.

On Day 3 of a hearing in Maryland on the government’s plans for the longtime Maryland resident this week, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis repeatedly blasted the government for what she said was an insufficient effort to address what exactly will be done to ensure due process for Abrego Garcia if he’s taken into ICE custody following his release.

“We’re asking for 72 hours, 72 hours notice, so that my client can have an opportunity to run to whatever is the appropriate court at that moment to get relief before he’s shipped off to an as-yet-unidentified country and he’s potentially subject to torture or persecution in violation of a court order. That’s all we’re asking,” Abrego Garcia’s attorney told the judge.

The judge did not rule from the bench but said she would do so soon.

Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native, was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison — despite a 2019 court order barring his deportation to that country due to fear of persecution — after the Trump administration claimed he was a member of the criminal gang MS-13, which he denies.

He was brought back to the U.S. last month to face charges in Tennessee of allegedly transporting undocumented migrants within the U.S. while he was living in Maryland. He has pleaded not guilty.

Government attorneys have said that, should Abrego Garcia be released on bond, he could be deported again, but Abrego Garcia’s legal team has argued he should be transferred from Tennessee to Maryland to await trial.

Judge Xinis, however, acknowledged the government’s position that there’s no ICE detention facility in Maryland.

The judge also said that restoring the status quo would mean returning Abrego Garcia to Maryland as that’s where “he was arrested in Baltimore without any proof” — but the government argued that his removal process started in Texas when he was taken into ICE custody.

“We may have a disagreement on what the status quo is, Your Honor … with respect, we disagree, but obviously your opinion matters more,” the DOJ attorney said.

Xinis said she doesn’t necessarily think sending Abrego Garcia back to his family in Maryland is the “proper full relief,” but added, “I do know there’s a real question in my mind: Does he get the process to start over through Immigration in Maryland?”

The judge also slammed the lack of detailed answers provided by ICE official Thomas Giles during his testimony Thursday, when he was asked to explain the government’s plans for Abrego Garcia’s deportation.

“The reality is, this has been a process. From Day 1, you have taken the presumption of regularity and you have destroyed it, in my view, because I can’t presume anything to be regular in this highly irregular case,” the judge said at the start of Friday’s hearing when a DOJ attorney wasn’t able to produce Abrego Garcia’s detainer document that she had asked for on Thursday.

The government subsequently produced the document later in the hearing.

Declaring that Giles’ testimony “insults my intelligence,” Judge Xinis said that getting specific information is critical due to the extraordinary situation in which the government has already wrongfully deported Abrego Garcia once.

“So this — we’re not operating on a clean slate at all,” she said. “It seems like this would be the case where you’d want to put a little meat on the bones of exactly how you’re going to do this lawfully and constitutionally.”

DOJ attorneys said the government has yet to decide if Abrego Garcia will be removed to a third country or if proceedings to remove him back to El Salvador will be reopened, and that the decision will be made by a case officer once he comes under ICE’s custody.

When the government said an ICE case officer will decide how to move forward with Abrego Garcia’s deportation process once he’s in ICE custody, the judge expressed doubt about the agency’s process, saying Abrego Garcia’s removal process has been “altered, all depending on” the Trump administration’s interests.

“That is plainly insufficient to tell me what’s going to happen to Mr. Abrego apart from what you would have me believe, which is that we’ve given this no thought, no conversation, no pre-planning, we’re just going to roll the dice on Wednesday or whatever day he’s released, if he’s released to ICE custody. And I’m just telling you, I’m not buying that,” Judge Xinis said.

When a DOJ attorney said that’s not a fair characterization of the government’s position, saying the decision will be made by an ICE officer like all other cases, the judge accepted the answer but remarked that it makes their argument “weaker.”

Judge Xinis also repeatedly pressed the government on what she described as an “inconsistent” policy in its third-country removal process — comparing a DHS memo from March to an email advisory ICE sent out to its officers earlier this month, the latter of which described the possibility of a person being removed from the U.S. without an opportunity to contest it based on fear of torture or persecution.

A government attorney replied that “there is no meaningful difference between what’s set forth in the March 30, 2025, process and the July 9 process,” and that should the third-country removal process take place, Abrego Garcia will be given written notice and an opportunity to contest it.

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(KERRVILLE, Texas) — A week after catastrophic flooding claimed at least 121 lives in Texas Hill Country, search efforts continue with volunteers working tirelessly to find victims and bring closure to families.

The United Cajun Navy, a volunteer organization that’s been coordinating disaster response since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, remains on the ground in Kerr County, where at least 96 people, including 36 children, lost their lives after the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in less than an hour early on July 4.

“At the beginning, it was mostly ground crews on foot, checking everything we could visually see,” Ryan Logue, the Texas incident commander for the United Cajun Navy, told ABC News on Friday. “Now we’ve got canine crews, search and rescue, and swim teams deployed.”

However, the recovery effort faces mounting challenges. As days pass, conditions on the ground are becoming more difficult. Logue explained that mud and silt washed down by the floodwaters are now “becoming almost like concrete” as they dry, making it harder for search teams to dig through debris.

For Logue, this mission hits close to home. As a Kerrville local, he’s not just leading the search effort — he’s helping rebuild his own community.

“This is my backyard. The place on the river that I’m at right now is where I take my daughter swimming,” Logue said. “I’m not going anywhere until we find every last victim and provide closure to this community.”

The dual role of helper and community member fuels Logue’s determination, he noted.

“The fire inside of me to help my community burns so strong,” he said, recounting how locals have embraced him with hugs and gratitude when they spot him wearing his United Cajun Navy shirt.

With President Donald Trump visiting the devastated region with First Lady Melania Trump on Friday, questions continue to mount about the local and federal response to the disaster.

Despite this, the focus remains clear for volunteers like Logue: bringing closure to families still waiting for news of their loved ones.

“This isn’t just a disaster you’re deployed to,” Logue said. “You have to process what’s going on because this is my backyard. But I know I have to put on my game face and make sure we’re doing everything we can to find anybody who was impacted by this.”

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(SANTA ROSA, Calif) — A Northern California military veteran was arrested for posing as a cop and a bounty hunter, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

Gregg Jackson, 40, from Santa Rosa, California, was arrested earlier this week for impersonating a law enforcement officer, specifically “using a vehicle outfitted with red and blue emergency lights and was identifying himself as a bounty hunter,” the sheriff’s office announced on Tuesday.

Jackson had been on a pretrial release for felony charges and “as part of the terms of his release, he was subject to search of his home and vehicle,” the sheriff’s office said.

While officials were searching his home, they said they found “several items that falsely identified him as a police officer.”

“During the investigation, it was determined that he was not licensed to operate as a Fugitive Recovery Agent,” officials said.

Jackson was arrested and booked for impersonating a police officer and two violations of his pretrial release conditions, officials said.

As of Friday, he remains in custody at the Sonoma County Main Adult Detention Facility and bail has been set at $56,000, officials said.

The case remains under investigation and officials said they believe Jackson “may have unlawfully acted as a Fugitive Recovery Agent in multiple states.”

The suspect’s friend, Tim Sutton, told San Francisco ABC station KGO he was “completely blown away” when he heard the news of Jackson’s arrest. He also revealed that Jackson is a military veteran and has post-traumatic stress disorder.

“The idea of Gregg doing that with malicious intent does not sound like the Gregg I know, he’s an easy-going guy to talk to,” Sutton told KGO.

Jackson has previously been arrested for driving under the influence, assault with a deadly weapon and carrying a concealed weapon with a prior conviction, according to court records.

His next court appearance is scheduled for Friday at 2 p.m. local time, according to court records.

The public defender’s office representing Jackson did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

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(NEW YORK) — The risk of the catastrophic flooding that struck Texas Hill Country as people slept on July 4 and left at least 120 dead was potentially underestimated by federal authorities, according to an ABC News analysis of Federal Emergency Management Agency data, satellite imagery and risk modeling.

Some of the youth camps and recreational areas most devastated by the extreme weather were established on land designated by the FEMA as “special flood hazard areas” or in the river’s floodway, making them especially vulnerable to the July 4 flash floods that exceeded some federal estimates for a worst-case scenario.

At some points, water extended for hundreds of feet outside the Guadalupe River’s banks and beyond FEMA estimates, according to satellite data. First Street, a risk modeling company, told ABC News that the company believes that more than double the 8 million homes nationwide that are designated by FEMA to be in flood zones are actually at risk, finding that government models are outdated and fail to consider extreme weather events.
Devastated camp ‘predominantly in a flood zone’

Along the river banks in Kerr County, the all-girls Camp Mystic was overrun by flood waters, which claimed the lives of 27 campers and counselors and swept multiple buildings from their foundations. According to FEMA maps, more than a dozen of the 36 cabins were located within areas designated as high risk for potential flooding on the river and nearby Cypress Creek.

“We knew this camp was predominantly in a flood zone, and even the areas that we showed that were outside were right on the edge of a flood zone,” said Jeremy Porter, the head of climate implications research at First Street, which provides climate data for companies like Zillow and Redfin.

Multiple buildings at Camp Mystic, including four cabins, were built within the Guadalupe River’s “regulatory floodway,” where most new construction is severely limited due to flood risk and to “protect human life and health,” according to Kerr County’s Flood Damage Prevention Order from 2020. The document noted that the stretch of land where Camp Mystic is situated is “an extremely hazardous area due to the velocity of flood waters which carry debris, potential projectiles and erosion potential.”

An additional 12 cabins at Camp Mystic were built on land designated as “special flood hazard areas,” where residents face a 1% chance of flooding annually and are normally required to have flood insurance.

“These should guide where you should or should not construct, whether you should have mitigation processes in place, like putting homes on elevated beds,” said Jonathan Sury, a senior staff associate at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University in Manhattan.

But some of those structures at the nearly 100-year-old camp were built decades before FEMA began issuing its flood maps in the 1960s and were likely permitted to remain despite modern construction regulations, Porter noted.

A row of cabins at Camp Mystic sat directly behind the “special flood hazard area” and was deemed a lower risk for typical flooding. However, the extreme flash-flooding over Independence Day weekend inundated even the area thought to be at lower risk for flooding, satellite and radar analysis show.

‘Outdated’ maps

At its maximum point, the floodwaters were recorded to be more than 500 feet from the Guadalupe River banks, and more than 200 feet from the edge of the FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area, according to the satellite data. The satellite data was collected and provided to ABC News by ICEYE, a company operating synthetic aperture radar satellites, which can obtain real-time data worldwide by using radar pulses to generate data. The data collected measures the depth of the water in a given location.

Other areas along the Guadalupe River were not only vulnerable to flooding but also saw a higher-than-expected water level, exceeding the area marked for a 0.2% annual chance of inundation. Experts told ABC News that Texas practices “very little oversight” over youth camps, and state officials last week approved Camp Mystic’s emergency plans.

At the Heart O’ the Hills Camp for Girls – where 1 person was killed – at least seven structures were built in the Special Flood Hazard Area. The data shows that the floodwater reached up to 220 feet from the riverbed.

Floodwaters devastated RV parks north of the other camps on the Guadalupe River. More than 60 RV spots had been situated in the FEMA-designated Special Flood Hazard Area. Satellite data shows the area was covered in floodwater spanning the entire RV park.

Lorena Guillen, the owner of the Blue Oak RV Park, told ABC News that she was familiar with where her business fell on the FEMA flood map and never considered that the floodwaters could reach as far as they did last week.

“It’s always come up…but there was nothing that would give us an indication that the flood was going to get all the way up 35, 40 feet high in 40 minutes,” she said. “Everything is gone. And there is so much debris, so much cleanup to do that it is going to take, it’s going to take months and months.”

Requests for comment to the camps and FEMA were not immediately answered.

“Our City of Kerrville and Kerr County leadership are committed to a transparent and full review of processes and protocols,” the Kerr County Joint Information Center said in an email. “The special session [of the state legislature] will be a starting point in which we will begin this work, but our entire focus since day one has been rescue and reunification.”

According to Porter, the extent of the flooding at Camp Mystic and other areas is representative of a broader problem with FEMA’s modeling, which places 8 million properties across the country at risk of a 100-year flood.

FEMA’s flood maps are generally used by the government to determine what insurance requirements are needed for homeowners, according to Lidia Cano Pecharroman, a researcher at MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning.”When planning for flooding we cannot be over-reliant on these maps,” she said. “They are a useful tool but they are based on limited modeling and data.”

FEMA’s model considers factors like coastal storm surge and risks of flooding along river channels, but does not take into account heavy precipitation, such as the extreme rains that swept across Texas last week, Porter said.

“They’re outdated in the sense that they’re not climate corrected,” Porter said. “As those intensities increase of those rainfall events, we’re getting more rainfall happening all at once. It’s filling the waterways, and we’re seeing rapid increases in the river levels.”

First Street estimates that there are more than 2.2 times the number of properties at risk of hundred-year floods than FEMA’s model suggests.

“It’s a devastating event that occurred, but people should look at it and say, you know, if we know our risk, we should retrofit our buildings,” said Porter. “We should make sure that they’re designed to a standard that can withstand the risk that exists in an area right outside of that flood zone.”

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