Kilmar Abrego Garcia to be deported to African nation of Eswatini: report
WASHINGTON - Kilmar Abrego Garcia will now be deported to the small African nation of Eswatini, according to a new email from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement obtained by FOX News.
The email lists the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as the agencies involved in the decision.
The ongoing saga
The Trump administration said last month that it would remove 30-year-old Abrego Garcia to Uganda, but a judge ruled that the government could not take away his right to criminal trial and on Aug. 25, forbade the federal government from removing him from the U.S.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia LATEST: Judge blocks deportation
A federal judge has blocked the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration. Abrego Garcia reunited with family over the weekend, and on Monday turned down a plea deal.
That emergency hearing came after Abrego Garcia surrendered to ICE in Baltimore, just days after he was released from a Tennessee jail—the closest he had been to freedom since his arrest in March.
Now, Abrego Garcia is back behind bars and facing another deportation order.
The joint email from federal agencies to Abrego Garcia's attorney also states that his legal team indicated that Abrego Garcia fears "persecution or torture" in Uganda.
The email went on to say that Abrego Garcia has claimed to fear prosecution or torture in at least 22 countries, including much of Central and South America. The agencies say that his concerns are "hard to take seriously."
The Associated Press reports that in July, the U.S. deported five men with criminal backgrounds to the southern African kingdom of Eswatini in July and sent eight others to South Sudan. Rwanda has said it will receive up to 250 migrants deported from the U.S.
The backstory
Abrego Garcia has become a main figure in the fight against President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration policies.
Critics of the administration have pointed to his case as a harbinger of what's to come amid the intense increase in ICE arrests and deportations—namely that innocent people will be caught up in the chaos.
Supporters, however, claim that the criminal allegations launched against him are enough reason to bar him from remaining in the country to face trial.
Lawyers of Kilmar Abrego Garcia say he wants to seek asylum in US
Kilmar Abrego Garcia's lawyers are arguing he has a right to seek asylum in the United States after being detained Monday in Baltimore by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, according to reporting by the Associated Press.
The Salvadoran national was wrongfully deported to his native country in March, accused of being a member of MS-13, despite a 2019 order from an immigration judge barring his removal to El Salvador due to fear of persecution. Ties to MS-13 were never corroborated and Abrego Garcia has maintained his innocence.
Now, the Republican administration is trying to deport him again under the ongoing assertion that he was operating as a human smuggler during his time in the U.S. Those allegations stem from a 2022 traffic stop in which Abrego Garcia was pulled over with eight passengers who he said had been working on a construction job with him in Missouri.
Abrego Garcia was not arrested and no criminal charges resulted from the stop. He was allowed to drive on with only a warning about an expired driver’s license, according to a report about the stop released last month by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
While ICE officials later admitted in a court filing that his initial deportation was due to an "administrative error," the Trump administration has persisted in its efforts to have him removed from the country.