A man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration has been threatened with removal again, according to a court filing by his lawyers.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 29 and originally from El Salvador, has been charged in an indictment filed in federal court in Tennessee with conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into the US.
He was released from federal detention on Friday after being held since March, when he was arrested and then deported back to his home country by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.
In a new filing to the Tennessee court on Saturday, Mr Garcia’s defence lawyers said that immigration officials threatened the 29-year-old with deportation to Uganda earlier in the week.
According to the filing, while he was held in Putnam County Jail on Thursday, Mr Garcia declined an offer to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for pleading guilty to human smuggling charges and remaining in prison.
After he left jail on Friday, ICE notified his attorneys that he would be deported to Uganda and should report to immigration authorities on Monday.
That same day, the Trump administration “informed Mr Abrego that he has until first thing Monday morning – precisely when he must report to ICE’s Baltimore Field Office – to accept a plea in exchange for deportation to Costa Rica, or else that offer will be off the table forever”.
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Filed along with the brief was a letter from the Costa Rican government stating that Mr Garcia would be welcomed to that country as a legal immigrant and wouldn’t face the possibility of detention.
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Justice Department spokesperson Chad Gilmartin responded in a statement and said: “A federal grand jury has charged Abrego Garcia with serious federal crimes… underscoring the clear danger this defendant presents to the community.
“This defendant can plead guilty and accept responsibility or stand trial before a jury. Either way, we will hold Abrego Garcia accountable and protect the American people.”
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Mr Garcia’s attorneys, said he would “fight tooth and nail against any form of deportation to Uganda” or nearby countries in Africa.
“It is preposterous that they would send him to Africa, to a country where he doesn’t even speak the language, a country with documented human rights violations, when there are so many other options,” he said. “This family has suffered enough.”
However, Mr Sandoval-Moshenberg appeared to suggest that deportation to Costa Rica might be favourable for his client, saying: “That’s a pretty reasonable option, right? I mean, Costa Rica makes sense.
“It’s a Spanish-speaking country. It’s proximate to the United States. His family can visit him there easily.”
Mr Garcia, who lived in Maryland with his American wife and son, was deported to El Salvador under a controversial 18th-century law. He was then imprisoned in its notorious maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
This was despite an immigration judge’s 2019 order granting him protection from deportation after finding he was likely to be persecuted by local gangs if he was returned to his native country.
Democrat senator Chris Van Hollen, who met Mr Garcia in CECOT, said the 29-year-old was “traumatised” by the experience.
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The Trump administration admitted that deporting Mr Garcia was an “administrative error”, but said at the time they could not bring him back as they do not have jurisdiction over El Salvador.
After eventually returning him to the US in June, the Trump administration detained Mr Garcia on criminal charges that were filed in May.
The criminal indictment alleges Mr Garcia worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the US illegally and transport them from the border to other destinations in the country.
Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, US President Donald Trump, vice president JD Vance and other officials claim Mr Garcia was a member of MS-13 – an international criminal gang formed by immigrants who had fled El Salvador‘s civil war to protect Salvadoran immigrants from rival gangs.
Mr Garcia’s lawyers strongly deny the claims.
