To ICE, Kilmar Abrego Garcia‘s life is basically a toy. Having earned their ire by committing the heinous crime of making them look foolish by deporting him by mistake, then vowing he would never return to the United States, and bullying him when he did return, they’ve finally settled on their ultimate punishment.
Garcia will be banished to Eswatini. You’re forgiven for breaking out the atlas on this one, as this is a minuscule landlocked country that’s almost entirely encircled by South Africa. ICE was planning to remove Garcia to Uganda, which is as ridiculous a destination. But, apparently taking him at his word that he’d face “persecution or torture” there, they have instead chosen Eswatini.
BREAKING: @FoxNews has obtained an email ICE sent to Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s lawyers this afternoon notifying them that ICE now plans to deport him to the tiny African country of ESWATINI due to him claiming fear of persecution/torture in Uganda & 20+ other countries, which ICE… pic.twitter.com/qpPiE6ZeyB
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) September 5, 2025
Eswatini has a population of about 1.3 million, is governed by an absolute monarchy (King Mswati III has ruled since 1986), and political parties are banned. The nation is also notable for its ongoing health crisis: 28% of adults are HIV positive, and tuberculosis is widespread. As such, it has the 12th-lowest life expectancy in the world.
So, what can Garcia expect if he is indeed deported here? Five unfortunate U.S. immigrants have already made the trip and were immediately placed in solitary confinement in the maximum security prison, Matsapha Correctional Complex. They are expected to be held in isolation for a year. Predictably, the prison is a human rights nightmare, rife with arbitrary killings, torture, rotten food, and extremely limited access to legal representation.
The Eswatinis themselves aren’t happy about their country being used like this, with internal pressure groups billing this process as “human trafficking disguised as deportation”.
His only crime is making ICE look incompetent
It’s worth underlining at this point that, despite the Trump administration’s best efforts to paint Garcia as the love child of El Chapo and Machete, he has never been convicted of any crime in the United States or El Salvador. He was also in the United States legally when he was first arrested in March, under the protection of a “withholding of removal” judicial order permitting him to be in the United States.
But, from Trump and ICE’s perspective, he is 100% guilty of the heinous sin of making them look like incompetent morons, and for that, his life must be torn apart. From all accounts sending him halfway around the world to Eswatini is, at minimum, sending him to be tortured (how else would you describe a year in solitary confinement in a nightmare prison?) or, more likely, a death sentence.
At this point, if they just want to kill Garcia, the honest thing for ICE to do is dirty their own hands, take some responsibility, and execute him themselves. Sending him to Eswatini is doing that anyway, why prolong his agony?
