In a court filing on Saturday, immigration officials stated that they plan to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda after he refused to accept a deal to be transferred to Costa Rica in exchange for staying in custody and entering a guilty plea to accusations of human smuggling.
After it became apparent that the Salvadoran national would probably be released from a Tennessee jail the next day, the Costa Rica offer was made late Thursday. Abrego Garcia was freed on Friday to wait for his trial in Maryland with his family after refusing to have his incarceration prolonged. His lawyers were informed later that day by the Department of Homeland Security that he would be sent to Uganda and would have to appear before immigration officials on Monday.
Regarding whether the plea deal had been properly withdrawn, his lawyers remained silent. Abrego Garcia had rejected a portion of the offer to stay in jail, according to the brief they submitted, and his lawyers would inform Mr. Abrego of the government’s request.
A letter from the Costa Rican government confirming that Abrego Garcia would be accepted as a lawful immigrant and would not be subject to detention was filed with the brief. Another advantage of the offer would be that, like Abrego Garcia’s home country of El Salvador, Costa Rica is a Spanish-speaking nation. The brief stated that Abrego Garcia would only be transported to Costa Rica after completing his term for the smuggling allegations.
After Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported in March, his story became a focal point of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy. The Trump administration detained him on people smuggling charges after bringing him back to the United States in June in response to a court order.
In an effort to punish him for contesting his deportation to El Salvador, he has entered a not guilty plea and requested that the judge dismiss the case. The threat to deport him to Uganda is more evidence that the prosecution is retaliatory, according to the Saturday filing, which was made in support of that petition to dismiss.
According to the petition, the administration was outraged and reacted quickly to Mr. Abrego’s release. Within minutes of Mr. Abrego’s release from pretrial custody, an ICE representative told his attorney that the government planned to deport him to Uganda, despite the fact that he had asked and been assured by the Costa Rican government that he would be accepted there. He was also instructed to report to ICE’s Baltimore Field Office on Monday morning.
Abrego Garcia, who was stopped for speeding in Tennessee in 2022, has entered a not guilty plea to the smuggling accusations.A Tennessee Highway Patrol officer’s body camera film reveals a composed conversation with Abrego Garcia. The officers talked among themselves about their suspicions of smuggling while the automobile was carrying nine people. Abrego Garcia, however, was just given a warning and permitted to keep driving.
According to a Department of Homeland Security agent who testified, he didn’t start looking into the traffic stop until April of this year, when the government was under increasing pressure to bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States.
Abrego Garcia was considered eligible for pretrial release, but his lawyers wanted him to stay behind bars because they were concerned that the Republican government may try to deport him again right away if he was released. A recent decision in a different Maryland case, which mandates that immigration officials give Abrego Garcia 72 hours’ notice before beginning deportation proceedings in order to give him time to present a defense, helped to soothe some of those concerns.
According to court documents, federal officials have claimed that Abrego Garcia can be deported because he entered the country unlawfully and because a U.S. immigration judge declared him eligible for expulsion in 2019, but not to his home country of El Salvador, where he has a legitimate fear of violence.
