The Trump administration has threatened to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda within days after he was released from federal custody in Tennessee on Friday.
Abrego Garcia was allowed to return home to Maryland more than four months after he was wrongfully deported to a brutal Salvadoran prison, only to be returned to the United States to be imprisoned on federal smuggling charges.
“For the first time since March, our client Kilmar Abrego Garcia is reunited with his loving family,” his attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg told The Independent.
“While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe,” he added. “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.”
Abrego Garcia’s high-profile case has been at the center of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda, and the administration has vowed to initiate new deportation proceedings against him upon his release.
Homeland Security notified Abrego Garcia’s counsel on Friday afternoon that Immigration and Customs Enforcement may deport the Salvadoran immigrant to Uganda “no earlier than 72 hours from now (absent weekends),” according to messages in court filings from his attorneys.
Uganda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Thursday the African nation agreed to a temporary deal to accept people “who may not be granted asylum in the United States but are reluctant to or may have concerns about returning to their countries of origin.”
But the deal excludes those with criminal records and unaccompanied minors.
Abrego Garcia also was ordered to attend an appointment at ICE’s Baltimore field office on Monday.
Last month, the federal judge overseeing a criminal case against Abrego Garcia ordered his release from jail before trial, finding that prosecutors failed to show “any evidence” that his history or arguments against him warrant his ongoing detention.
Another federal judge overseeing his wrongful deportation case blocked the Trump administration from immediately arresting and deporting him after his release.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called his release a “new low” from a “publicity hungry” Maryland judge.
“Activist liberal judges have attempted to obstruct our law enforcement every step of the way in removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country,” she said in a statement to The Independent.
“By ordering this monster loose on America’s streets, this judge has shown a complete disregard for the safety of the American people,” she said. “We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country.”
Abrego Garcia entered the country illegally as a teenager after fleeing gang violence in El Salvador. He had been living with his wife and child, both U.S. citizens, in Maryland, when he was arrested by immigration authorities during a traffic stop in March.
Despite an immigration judge’s earlier order that blocked his removal from the country for humanitarian reasons, he was put on a plane for El Salvador on March 15.
Government lawyers admitted in court documents that he was removed from the country due to a procedural error, and several federal judges and a unanimous Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to “facilitate” his return after his “illegal” arrest.
Still, the government spent weeks battling court orders while officials publicly said he would never set foot in the United States, characterizing him as a serial abuser and criminal gang member.
Emails and text messages provided to members of Congress appear to show that administration officials and government lawyers were sympathetic to his wrongful removal and made efforts to get him out of El Salvador before the case made headlines, which caused major headaches for the White House.
In court filings, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys detailed the “severe mistreatment” and “torture” he experienced during his month-long detention inside El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.
His attorneys say he was subject to “severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation, inadequate nutrition, and psychological torture” at the facility.
He was abruptly flown back to the United States in June to face criminal charges in Tennessee, where a grand jury indicted him on federal smuggling charges.
A two-count indictment accuses Abrego Garcia of participating in a years-long conspiracy to illegally move undocumented immigrants from Texas to other parts of the country. He faces one count of conspiracy to transport aliens and one count of unlawful transportation of undocumented aliens. He has pleaded not guilty.
In their request to keep him in jail before trial, federal prosecutors also claimed he is a member of the transnational gang MS-13 and “personally participated in violent crime, including murder.”
Prosecutors also claim he “abused” women and trafficked children, firearms and narcotics, and there is also an ongoing investigation into “solicitation of child pornography.”
Abrego Garcia is not facing any charges on any of those allegations, and a federal judge determined that the government failed to link those allegations to evidence that implicates him.
On Tuesday, his attorneys asked a federal judge to throw out the criminal case against him, citing “vindictive” or “selective prosecution.”
They claim he was “singled out” by the Trump administration for “having the audacity to fight back, rather than accept a brutal injustice” after he was wrongfully deported to a brutal prison in his home country.
“Even as government officials recognized both publicly and privately that Mr. Abrego’s removal to El Salvador had been a serious mistake, the government responded not with contrition, or with any effort to fix its mistake, but with defiance,” his attorneys wrote.
“A group of the most senior officials in the United States sought vengeance: they began a public campaign to punish Mr. Abrego for daring to fight back, culminating in the criminal investigation that led to the charges in this case,” they added.
His lawyers admitted that motions to dismiss on grounds of selective or vindictive prosecution are rarely granted, but “if there has ever been a case for dismissal on those grounds, this is that case,” they said.
“The government is attempting to use this case — and this Court — to punish Mr. Abrego for successfully fighting his unlawful removal. That is a constitutional violation of the most basic sort. The Indictment must be dismissed,” his attorneys wrote.
Abrego Garcia’s trial is scheduled to begin in January 2026.
