The Trump administration is using the U.S. immigration system to punish Kilmar Abrego Garcia for successfully challenging his deportation to El Salvador earlier this year, according to a member of his legal team.
The undocumented immigrant and longtime Maryland resident was detained in Baltimore Aug. 25 during a scheduled check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement following his court-ordered return to the U.S. in June, attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg
Abrego Garcia was quickly charged with federal human smuggling charges stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. Then he was presented a plea deal offering him deportation and refugee status in Costa Rica in return for pleading guilty in the smuggling case.
When he pleaded not guilty instead, the administration declared its intention to deport Abrego Garcia to Uganda, a country where he has no family or friends and which is known for human rights abuses.
“For them to insist on fighting out a deportation to Uganda shows that the real motive in this matter is not getting him out of the country, it’s punishing him,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said during a news conference held just hours after Abrego Garcia’s detention.
“The court in Tennessee did not allow them to keep him locked up there, so this is just another means for them to keep him locked up,” the attorney said. “The Supreme Court has held since the 1980s that using the immigration system to deliberately punish someone is impermissible, and that’s what’s happening here.”
“The Supreme Court has held since the 1980s that using the immigration system to deliberately punish someone is impermissible, and that’s what’s happening here.”
Abrego Garcia gained international attention after being mistakenly removed to and imprisoned in his home country in March despite a 2019 court order barring his expulsion due to having a credible fear of persecution in El Salvador.
The undocumented immigrant was returned to the U.S. by court order in June after the administration presented unproved claims he belonged to the notorious MS-13 gang in El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia now has served the government notice he is willing to be deported to Costa Rica, which has assured him he will not be deported from there to El Salvador, Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
He also filed a notice of a credible fear of removal to Uganda because of its repressive government and the lack of assurances it will not send him to his home country.
The notices entitle Abrego Garcia to a credible fear interview while a lawsuit filed Aug. 25 seeks to bar DHS from deporting him before the process is complete, Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey, D-Md., expressed disappointment that the administration didn’t let the case proceed as it should through the immigration court system.
“It’s outrageous that the Trump administration is transforming the Department of Justice into a department of retribution. And this is yet another example of them abusing the power of the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security.”
The criminal charges originating in Tennessee are an effort to distract from the debacle of the mistaken deportation in March, Ivey added. “They did it just to save face. They deported him illegally. They knew that. They didn’t want to admit it. They said they couldn’t bring him back, but then they brought him back only under the guise” of the new charges.
“And he’s never been to Uganda. He has no family there. It’s a terrible totalitarian regime and I’m sure their penal system is nothing to write home about.”
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