Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported to a notorious El Salvador prison in March due to an “admin error”, has been detained by US immigration authorities again and now faces another potential and immediate deportation by the Trump administration.
Published On 25 Aug 202525 Aug 2025
Aug. 23 (UPI) — A day after his release from custody, Kilmar Abrego Garcia faces the possibility of being deported to Uganda, lawyers for the El Salvadoran national said in a court filing Saturday.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers claim the federal government is pushing their client to accept a guilty plea in relation to human trafficking charges in Tennessee, or face deportation to the African nation. He was born in El Salvador, immigrated to the United States as a teenager around 2011 and violated a 2019 court order that protected him from deportation.
On Friday, a federal magistrate judge released Abrego Garcia from custody while he awaits trial for the Tennessee incident.
He was then immediately ordered to report to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Baltimore.
The judge ordered the federal government to give the 30-year-old at least 72 hours notice before undertaking deportation proceedings to give his lawyers a chance to file a legal challenge.
“Despite having requested and received assurances from the government of Costa Rica that Mr. Abrego would be accepted there, within minutes of his release from pretrial custody, an ICE representative informed Mr. Abrego’s counsel that the government intended to deport Mr. Abrego to Uganda and ordered him to report to ICE’s Baltimore Field Office Monday,” lawyers said in their court filing.
“There can be only one interpretation of these events: the DOJ, DHS, and ICE are using their collective powers to force Mr. Abrego to choose between a guilty plea followed by relative safety, or rendition to Uganda, where his safety and liberty would be under threat.”
Abrego Garcia was initially deported to El Salvador this past March after federal officials accused him of being a member of the MS-13 gang and illegally entered the United States in 2011.
The move came amid President Donald Trump‘s crackdown on illegal immigration across the country.
The Trump administration later admitted Abrego Garcia’s deportation was due to an administrative error.
He was later returned to the United States after his case became national news, leading people to advocate for his repatriation, including Sen. Chris Van Hollen Jr., D-Md. Abrego Garcia lives in Baltimore with his wife and children.
He has been held in custody since returning to the United States in relation to the 2022 human trafficking charges in Tennessee.
Federal officials have promised to deport him to Costa Rica in exchange for a guilty plea, but have said that offer will be rescinded shortly if Abrego Garcia doesn’t make a deal.
Immigration officials in the United States say they intend to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda, according to a court filing, in what the man’s legal team describes as an act of “vindictiveness” by US President Donald Trump’s administration.
The court filing on Saturday said the idea of sending Abrego Garcia to Uganda came after he declined an offer to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for remaining in jail and pleading guilty to human smuggling charges.
He has pleaded not guilty and asked the judge to dismiss the case, claiming that it is an attempt to punish him for challenging his deportation from the US to El Salvador earlier this year.
Abrego Garcia’s case has become a flashpoint in Trump’s hardline, anti-immigration agenda after the Salvadoran national was mistakenly deported in March.
Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the US in June, only to detain him on human smuggling charges.
The Costa Rica offer came late on Thursday, after it was clear that Abrego Garcia would likely be released from a Tennessee jail the following day.
Abrego Garcia declined to extend his stay in jail and was released on Friday to await trial in Maryland with his family.
Later that day, the US Department of Homeland Security notified his lawyers that he would be deported to Uganda and should report to immigration authorities on Monday.
“The government immediately responded to Mr Abrego’s release with outrage,” Saturday’s filing by Abrego Garcia’s lawyers reads.
“Despite having requested and received assurances from the government of Costa Rica that Mr Abrego would be accepted there, within minutes of his release from pretrial custody, an ICE representative informed Mr Abrego’s counsel that the government intended to deport Mr Abrego to Uganda and ordered him to report to ICE’s Baltimore Field Office Monday morning.”
The filing also accuses US officials of “using their collective powers to force Mr Abrego to choose between a guilty plea followed by relative safety, or rendition to Uganda, where his safety and liberty would be under threat”.
“It is difficult to imagine a path the government could have taken that would have better emphasized its vindictiveness,” it says.
Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his lawyers, who feared the Trump administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed.
Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case in Maryland, which requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a defence.
But Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington, DC, on Saturday evening, said the latest developments have raised new fears that Abrego Garcia will be quickly deported once he reports to ICE officials on Monday.
“He and his lawyers argue there’s a very real fear that the US will once again ignore a judge’s order to basically leave him alone and put him on a plane and take him to another country – in this case, Uganda,” she said.
Abrego Garcia had been living in the US under protected legal status since 2019, when a judge ruled he should not be deported because he could be harmed in his home country.
He then became one of more than 200 people sent to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison as part of Trump’s crackdown on migrants and asylum seekers in the US.
But Department of Justice lawyers admitted that the Salvadoran citizen had been wrongly deported due to an “administrative error”.
Abrego Garcia – who denies any wrongdoing – now stands accused of involvement in smuggling undocumented migrants from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and other countries into the US between 2016 and earlier this year.
His trial in his human smuggling case is set to begin in January 2027.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said in a social media post on Saturday that “no matter what you think about Mr Abrego Garcia, if you believe in due process, you should be infuriated” by the effort to send him to Uganda.
“The Trump admin is threatening to dump him in Africa as punishment for not pleading guilty to criminal charges they brought to avoid complying with a court order,” Reichlin-Melnick wrote on X.
The Trump administration has defended its policies, saying the US president was elected on a promise to carry out the “largest deportation operation” in the country’s history.
But Washington’s push to deport people has drawn widespread criticism, with removals to third countries, in particular, fuelling fears that those being sent abroad could face human rights abuses and other dangers.
Last month, the Trump administration sent eight men to South Sudan, a country gripped by political instability and violence.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who’s at the center of an ongoing immigration feud with the Trump administration, faces the possibility of deportation to Uganda, just a day after being released from a Tennessee jail.
Court documents Saturday showed President Trump’s administration plans to deport Abrego Garcia to Uganda after he turned down an offer to be sent to Costa Rica if he pleaded guilty to human smuggling charges.
His case has attracted attention amid Trump’s immigration crackdown when he was mistakenly deported in March. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on human smuggling charges, which the Maryland resident denies.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia’s lead attorney in his lawsuit against the Trump administration, said in a statement Saturday that the government is trying to use the immigration system to punish his client by “attempting to send him halfway across the world, to a country with documented human rights abuses and where he does not even speak the language.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorney’s court filings show the administration requested he appear at an immigration facility in Baltimore on Monday and could be deported again.
In a statement Friday at his release, Abrego Garcia said he saw his family for the first time in more than five months.
“We are steps closer to justice, but justice has not been fully served,” he added.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem denounced the decision to free Abrego Garcia, stating that the administration will not stop fighting until he’s out of the U.S.
The Trump administration casts him as an MS-13 gang member and immigrant smuggler.
Abrego Garcia and his attorneys reject those claims. They portray him as a family man and construction worker who was arbitrarily deported and vindictively charged.
As his story takes yet another turn, here’s what to know:
The Costa Rica offer came late Thursday and included a requirement that he remain in jail, according to a brief filed in Tennessee, where the criminal case was brought. After Abrego Garcia left jail Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement told his attorneys he would be deported to Uganda and should report to immigration authorities Monday.
Later Friday, the government told Abrego Garcia he has until first thing Monday to accept a plea in exchange for deportation to Costa Rica, or else that offer will be off the table, his defense attorneys wrote.
They declined to say whether he is still considering the offer.
Filed along with the court brief was a letter from the Costa Rican government stating that Abrego Garcia would be welcomed to that country as a legal immigrant and wouldn’t face the possibility of detention.
Justice Department spokesperson Chad Gilmartin responded to the brief with a statement saying, “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.”
The Department of Homeland Security notified his attorneys that he should report to immigration authorities on Monday in Baltimore to face deportation.
Uganda has agreed to a deal to accept certain migrants being deported from the United States.
Abrego Garcia, 30, grew up in El Salvador and fled at 16 because a local gang extorted from and terrorized his family, court records state. He traveled to Maryland, where his brother lives as a U.S. citizen, but was not authorized to stay.
Abrego Garcia found work in construction and met his future wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura. In 2018, he moved in with her and her two children after she became pregnant with their child.
In March 2019, Abrego Garcia went to a Home Depot seeking work as a laborer when he was detained by local police, court records state. He was suspected of being in MS-13, based on tattoos and clothing.
A criminal informant told police Abrego Garcia was in MS-13, court records state, but police did not charge him and turned him over to ICE.
A U.S. immigration judge denied Abrego Garcia’s subsequent asylum claim because more than a year had passed since his arrival. But the judge granted him protection from being deported to El Salvador, determining he had a “well-founded fear” of gang persecution there, court records state.
Abrego Garcia was released and placed under federal supervision. He received a federal work permit and checked in with ICE each year, his lawyers said.
In February, the Trump administration designated MS-13 a foreign terrorist organization. In March, it deported Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador, violating the U.S. immigration judge’s 2019 order.
Abrego Garcia later claimed in court documents that he was beaten and psychologically tortured while held at the Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele denied the allegations.
The Trump administration described its violation of the immigration judge’s 2019 order as an administrative error. Trump and other officials reiterated claims that Abrego Garcia was in MS-13.
Vasquez Sura filed a lawsuit to bring her husband back. The Trump administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. in June after a Supreme Court order. But it brought human smuggling charges against him.
The smuggling case stems from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding, during which Abrego Garcia was driving with nine passengers. Tennessee police suspected human smuggling, but allowed him to drive on and didn’t charge him.
Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty.
His lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case based on “vindictive and selective prosecution.”
U.S. Magistrate Barbara Holmes in Nashville ruled in June that Abrego Garcia has a right to be released from jail while he awaits trial.
But Abrego Garcia remained in a Tennessee jail at his attorneys’ request for about 11 weeks over fears that ICE would immediately try to deport him.
Thomas Giles, an assistant director for ICE, testified in July that Abrego Garcia would be detained as soon as he’s freed.
U.S. officials argued Abrego Garcia can be deported because he came to the U.S. illegally and because an immigration judge deemed him eligible for expulsion in 2019, just not to his native El Salvador.
In response to concerns Abrego Garcia would be deported without due process, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis prohibited ICE from immediately detaining him upon release in Tennessee.
Xinis, overseeing the lawsuit in Maryland, ordered restrictions on ICE in late July. She required any removal proceedings begin in Baltimore.
Xinis also ordered that ICE provide three business days’ notice if it intends to initiate removal proceedings.
The Trump administration has “done little to assure the Court that, absent intervention, Abrego Garcia’s due process rights will be protected,” Xinis wrote.
Soon after Xinis’ order, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys asked the federal judge in Tennessee to release him.
Holmes, the U.S. magistrate in Nashville, released him Friday, requiring Abrego Garcia to stay with his brother in Maryland and be subjected to electronic monitoring and home detention.
Finley and Catalini write for the Associated Press. AP writer Travis Loller in Nashville contributed to this report.
NASHVILLE — U.S. immigration officials said they intend to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda, after he declined an offer to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for remaining in jail and pleading guilty to human smuggling charges, according to a Saturday court filing.
The Costa Rica offer came late Thursday, after it was clear that the Salvadoran national would probably be released from a Tennessee jail the next day. Abrego Garcia declined to extend his stay in jail and was released Friday to await trial in Maryland with his family. Later that day, the Department of Homeland Security notified his attorneys that he would be deported to Uganda and should report to immigration authorities Monday.
Abrego Garcia’s case became a high-profile story in President Trump’s immigration crackdown after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on human smuggling charges.
He has pleaded not guilty and has asked the judge to dismiss the case, claiming that it is an attempt to punish him for challenging his deportation to El Salvador. The Saturday filing came as a supplement to that motion to dismiss, stating that the threat to deport him to Uganda is more proof that the prosecution is vindictive.
“The government immediately responded to Mr. Abrego’s release with outrage,” the filing reads. “Despite having requested and received assurances from the government of Costa Rica that Mr. Abrego would be accepted there, within minutes of his release from pretrial custody, an ICE representative informed Mr. Abrego’s counsel that the government intended to deport Mr. Abrego to Uganda and ordered him to report to ICE’s Baltimore Field Office Monday morning.”
Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed. Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case in Maryland, which requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a defense.
Loller writes for the Associated Press.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from jail in Tennessee on Friday so he can rejoin his family in Maryland while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges.
The Salvadoran national’s case became a flashpoint in President Trump’s immigration agenda after he was mistakenly deported in March. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on criminal charges.
Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed. Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case, which requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a challenge to any deportation order.
On Friday, after two months, Abrego Garcia walked out of the Putnam County jail wearing a short-sleeved white button-down shirt and black pants and accompanied by defense attorney Rascoe Dean and two other men. They did not speak to reporters but got into a white SUV and sped off.
The release order from the court requires Abrego Garcia to travel directly to Maryland, where he will be in home detention with his brother designated as his third-party custodian. He is required to submit to electronic monitoring and can only leave the home for work, religious services and other approved activities.
An attorney for Abrego Garcia in his immigration case in Maryland, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement Friday his client had been “reunited with his loving family” for the first time since he was wrongfully deported to a notorious El Salvador prison in March.
“While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threaten to tear his family apart. A measure of justice has been done, but the government must stop pursuing actions that would once again separate this family.”
Earlier this week, Abrego Garcia’s criminal attorneys filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the criminal case, claiming he is being prosecuted to punish him for challenging his removal to El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was allowed to continue driving with only a warning.
A Department of Homeland Security agent testified he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until this April, when the government was facing mounting pressure to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
Abrego Garcia has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally. In 2019, an immigration judge denied his application for asylum but granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador, where he faces a “well-founded fear” of violence, according to court filings. He was required to check in yearly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement while Homeland Security issued him a work permit.
Although Abrego Garcia can’t be deported to El Salvador without violating the judge’s order, Homeland Security officials have said they plan to deport him to an unnamed third country.
Loller and Hall write for the Associated Press.
Aug. 22 (UPI) — A federal magistrate judge released El Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego Garcia from custody Friday while he awaits trial for alleged human trafficking in Tennessee.
U.S. District Court of Middle Tennessee Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes ordered that Garcia would not have to remain in custody while awaiting to face federal criminal charge in June, He had bee returned from El Salvador after being deported there by mistake, the government said.
Garcia “is presently en route to his family in Maryland after being unlawfully arrested and deported and then imprisoned,” said Garcia’s attorney, Sean Hecker, as reported by The Guardian.
Hecker accused the Trump administration of engaging in a “vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the administration’s continuing assault on the rule of law.”
Garcia, 30, was heading home to rejoin his wife and two children.
He is charged with federal crimes related to alleged human trafficking, which led to his return to the United States in June after the Justice Department pressed charges against him in Tennessee.
Federal prosecutors sought to keep Garcia in custody while awaiting his federal trial in Nashville.
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. last month ruled the government did not show he is a danger to U.S. citizens or a flight risk.
“The government’s general statements about the crimes brought against Abrego, and the evidence it has in support of those crimes, do not prove Abrego’s dangerousness,” Crenshaw, an Obama appointee, said in a 37-page ruling.
His attorneys asked the court to keep Garcia in custody for 30 days after Trump administration officials said they would deport him again if he were released from custody. Holmes approved the request to prevent Garcia’s likely deportation.
A federal judge in Maryland has ordered Garcia to remain in the United States while awaiting trial, which might have negated his potential deportation.
Garcia was arrested and deported to El Salvador in March after prior court proceedings concluded that he likely is a member of the MS-13 gang and illegally entered the United States in 2011.
A federal immigration judge denied Garcia’s asylum claim in 2019, but ruled he could not be deported to El Salvador, where he has said he fears persecution from a rival 18th Street Gang, which is active in the United States.
The Trump administration in January designated MS-13 and the 18th Street Gang as foreign terrorist organizations that pose a threat to the United States.
The Trump administration acknowledged Garcia was to be deported, but said an administrative error placed him on the deportation flight to El Salvador.
The El Salvadoran government placed Garcia in its Terrorism Confinement Center prison, commonly called CECOT, amid a crackdown on gangs in that country.
His lawyers claim he was psychologically and physically tortured while in the CECOT prison.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen Jr., D-Md., visited Garcia in El Salvador in a failed attempt to return him to the United States.
A subsequent Tennessee State Police video showed a November 2022 traffic stop near Nashville in which Garcia was pulled over for speeding and did not have a valid license.
Garcia had multiple passengers who were not U.S. citizens, which raised concerns of human trafficking and related violations.
Abrego Garcia will return to family as he awaits trial over alleged human smuggling brought by Trump administration.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported by the administration of United States President Donald Trump, has been released from a jail in Tennessee.
Abrego Garcia was released on Friday and will rejoin his family in Maryland while he awaits the beginning of a trial based on allegations of human smuggling by the Trump administration, according to his lawyer.
The detention of Abrego Garcia, who remained held in an El Salvador prison known for abusive conditions even after the government admitted he had been mistakenly deported, became a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s push for mass deportations with little semblance of due process.
The government, faced with a court order, brought Abrego Garcia back to the US in June, despite previously claiming it had no authority to do so. Upon his return, the Trump administration announced criminal charges against him for alleged human smuggling.
Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration previously tried to link to the criminal group MS-13 through disproven claims, has denied the charges. His lawyers have depicted the criminal charges as a form of punishment for speaking out against his wrongful deportation and embarrassing the administration.
While he was previously cleared for pre-trial release from the Tennessee jail, his lawyers requested that he be allowed to remain there out of concern that the government would move to deport him again if he was released.
Those fears have slightly eased after a recent, separate court ruling that said the government must allow Abrego Garcia to challenge a deportation order. His lawyers filed a motion for dismissal of the criminal case, arguing that it is a form of retaliation from the government.
An immigration judge rejected Abrego Garcia’s application for asylum in 2019, but ruled that he could not be deported to El Salvador due to a “well-founded fear” of violence in that country.
The Trump administration has said that it will instead seek to deport Abrego Garcia to a third country.