Tennessee’s Nashville.In a court filing on Saturday, immigration officials stated that they plan to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda after he refused to accept a deportation offer to Costa Rica in exchange for staying in custody and entering a guilty plea to charges of human smuggling.
After it became apparent that the Salvadoran national would probably be released from a Tennessee jail the next day, the Costa Rica offer was made late Thursday. Abrego Garcia was freed on Friday to wait for his trial in Maryland with his family after refusing to have his incarceration prolonged. His lawyers were informed later that day by the Department of Homeland Security that he would be sent to Uganda and would have to appear before immigration officials on Monday.
Suggested Videos
After Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported in March, his case became a focal point of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. The Trump administration detained him on people smuggling charges after bringing him back to the United States in June in response to a court order.
Abrego Garcia was considered eligible for pretrial release, but his lawyers wanted him to stay behind bars because they were concerned that the Republican government may try to deport him again right away if he was released. A recent decision in a different Maryland case that mandates immigration officials give Abrego Garcia time to present a defense helped to ease some of those concerns.
