Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who faced unlawful deportation in March, has returned to the United States to face fresh criminal allegations. His attorney stated that he was taken into immigration prison after checking in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement at their Baltimore office on Monday morning.
According to attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia was detained the moment he entered the ICE office.
“When we inquired about the reason for his detention, the ICE officer remained silent,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said, adding that the authorities refused to reveal which detention center his client would be moved to.
“We requested the ICE officer provide us with any paperwork being served on him today, but the officer refused to even share that paperwork,” Sandoval-Moshenberg told me.
On Friday, only one day after being released from criminal jail in Tennessee, ICE alerted Abrego Garcia’s attorneys that he could be deported to Uganda and instructed him to report to their Maryland office.
According to a court filing from his attorneys, Abrego Garcia rejected a plea offer that would have permitted him to be deported to Costa Rica. In exchange for pleading guilty to human smuggling charges, he would have had to stay in jail.
Abrego Garcia’s legal team claims that the federal government is pressing their client to submit a guilty plea and threatening deportation to East Africa if he refuses.
Abrego Garcia, an El Salvador native, was scheduled to be deported to the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador in March. This occurred despite a 2019 court judgment that barred his deportation due to worries about probable persecution. The Trump government claimed that he was a member of the criminal group MS-13, which both his family and legal counsel deny.
In June, he returned to the United States to face charges in Tennessee for allegedly transporting unauthorized workers across the country while staying in Maryland. He has pleaded not guilty.
In July, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ruled that if Abrego Garcia is released while awaiting trial, he must be under ICE surveillance in Maryland. This is where he resided with his wife and children before being illegally deported in March, ensuring that he receives the right relief upon his return.
Xinis also declared that if the government intends to deport Abrego Garcia to a third country, they must provide a 72-hour notice.
The directive allowed the Trump administration to begin “lawful immigration proceedings” once Abrego Garcia returned to Maryland. Xinis stated in July that the immigration processes might include “lawful arrest, detention, and eventual removal,” although it is unclear whether they will.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers filed a habeas case on Monday morning, claiming that the federal authorities imprisoned him without enabling him to express his realistic fears of persecution and torture if deported to Uganda. Read More!