Kilmar Abrego Garcia was reunited with his family for less than 72 hours before Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained him again, this time with plans to deport him to Uganda.
Now he’s fighting a deportation that his legal team calls a “coordinated effort” by the U.S. government to “punish” him “for fighting back against its unlawful conduct.”
In March, Abrego Garcia was sent to El Salvador’s notoriously violent CECOT prison despite having temporary protective status in the United States—which the Trump administration admitted was a mistake.
Since then, Abrego Garcia has become a target of the Trump administration. On the eve of his return home to Maryland, he was offered by the Trump team a deportation to Costa Rica, in exchange for admitting to human trafficking and ties to the MS-13 gang.
Denying the plea deal, he now faces deportation to Africa where, upon arrival, he risks being rerouted back to El Salvador. And in Uganda, Abrego Garcia’s legal team says, he also faces danger of persecution and torture.
As of Monday, his team is pushing to stall the deportation, which U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis blocked until she can hold a hearing to determine whether the administration will let him contest his removal to Uganda.
“Regardless of what happens today in my ICE check-in, promise me this, promise me that you will continue to pray, continue to fight, resist and love—not just for me, but for everybody,” Abrego Garcia said to a crowd Monday before reporting to the ICE facility where he was then detained.
The Trump administration’s deportations of immigrants to random countries have continued since the Supreme Court gave the green light again in June. Immigrants from China, Central and South America, and elsewhere are being scattered to foreign prisons in places like Costa Rica, Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, and Cuba.
More so, the Trump administration has bolstered its hefty deportation goals with a massive new multibillion-dollar budget to build detention facilities across the nation.
From Florida’s recently closed “Alligator Alcatraz” to Indiana’s “Speedway Slammer,” President Donald Trump’s goons—like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and “border czar” Tom Homan—have worked overtime to promote the centers already riddled with abuse and neglect.
Even the podcast giant Joe Rogan, who once seemingly supported Trump’s cause, has slammed his deportation tactics.
“The problem is some of them are good people. Some of them are not gang members,” he said. “Most of them are just people that wanted a better life—most of them. But they have mandates now. And mandates get creepy because then people become numbers.”