ROX• TV | Kilmar Abrego Garcia fights imminent deportation to Uganda

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man who was illegally deported to his home country and then brought back to the U.S., is asking the federal courts to once again stop the Trump administration from abruptly casting him out of the country.

Surrounded by a crowd of supporters and accompanied by his wife, Abrego showed up at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Baltimore early Monday for a “check-in.”
ICE officers detained Abrego on the spot, his attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said at a press conference outside the building where his client was arrested.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed the arrest in a statement and indicated that the government is preparing to immediately deport Abrego again. His lawyers have been told the administration intends to deport him to Uganda this time.

His first deportation, to El Salvador in March, was deemed illegal because it violated a 2019 order from an immigration judge that barred him from being sent there. After initially resisting court orders to return him to the U.S., the administration brought him back in June and charged him with criminal human smuggling in Tennessee. Abrego has denied those charges.

Last week, he was released from jail in Tennessee and allowed to return to Maryland to rejoin his family. Then, over the weekend, his lawyers accused the administration of using the threat of deportation to Uganda to try to coerce Abrego into pleading guilty to the smuggling charges.
In a last-ditch legal maneuver on Monday morning, Abrego asked a federal judge in Maryland to block his quick deportation and instead ensure he receives another full immigration trial and a chance to contest the circumstances of his removal from the country.

Sandoval-Moshenberg said the new lawsuit challenges Abrego’s “current confinement and … his deportation to Uganda or to any other country unless and until he’s had a full trial in an immigration court as well as his full appeal rights.”

“That’s what we are going to be asking the district court to ensure, that he is not put on any flight to any country whatsoever, whether it’s Uganda, South Sudan, what have you,” the attorney said, as several Abrego backers punctuated the press conference with cries of “Free Kilmar!”

Sandoval-Moshenberg said the administration’s bid to send Abrego to Uganda amounts to a form of punishment of his client, since Costa Rica agreed to accept Abrego and he has consented to being sent there.