WASHINGTON (AP) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case has come to encapsulate much of President Donald Trump ’s hard-line immigration agenda, wants to seek asylum in the United States, his lawyers told a federal judge Wednesday.
Abrego Garcia, 30, was detained Monday by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement in Baltimore after leaving a Tennessee jail on Friday. The Trump administration said it intends to deport him to the African country of Uganda.
Administration officials have said he’s part of the dangerous MS-13 gang, an allegation Abrego Garcia denies.
The Salvadoran national’s lawyers are fighting the deportation efforts in court, arguing he has the right to express fear of persecution and torture in Uganda. Abrego Garcia has also told immigration authorities he would prefer to be sent to Costa Rica if he must be removed from the U.S.
A U.S. immigration judge denied his request for asylum in 2019 because he applied more than a year after he had fled to the U.S. He left El Salvador at the age of 16, around 2011, to join his brother, who had become a U.S. citizen and was living in Maryland.
Although he was denied asylum, the immigration judge did issue an order shielding Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he faced credible threats of violence from a gang there that had terrorized him and his family. He was granted a form of protection known as “withholding of removal,” which prohibits him from being sent to El Salvador but allows his deportation to another country.
Following the 2019 ruling, Abrego Garcia was released under federal supervision and continued to live with his American wife and children in Maryland. He checked in with ICE each year, received a federal work permit and was working as a sheet metal apprentice earlier this year, his lawyers have said.
But in March, the Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia to a notorious El Salvador prison, alleging he was a member of MS-13.
Authorities had been told by a confidential informant that Abrego Garcia and other men could be identified as members of MS-13 because of their clothing and tattoos. He was detained by police in 2019 outside a Home Depot in Maryland where he had been seeking work as a day laborer. But Abrego Garcia was never charged —- and has repeatedly denied the allegation. He was turned over to ICE and that’s when he applied for asylum for the first time.
The Trump administration’s deportation of Abrego Garcia in March violated the immigration judge’s 2019 order barring his removal to El Salvador. Abrego Garcia’s wife sued to bring him back. Facing mounting pressure and a U.S. Supreme Court order, the Trump administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. in June, where he was charged with human smuggling, a federal offense.
The Trump administration moved to deport Abrego Garcia again on Monday. He then stated his intent to reopen his immigration case in Maryland and to seek asylum again, his lawyers said Wednesday.
Asylum, as defined under U.S. law, provides a green card and a path to citizenship. Abrego Garcia can still challenge his deportation to Uganda, or any other country, on grounds that it is unsafe.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers say sending him to Uganda would be punishment for successfully fighting his deportation to El Salvador, refusing to plead guilty to the smuggling charges and for seeking release from jail in Tennessee. They have filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Maryland to fight the administration’s attempts to deport him to Uganda.
Meanwhile in Uganda, critics claim that the country has made a murky deal with the Trump administration to accept deportees in exchange for easing political pressure on the country’s president, who has ruled for nearly four decades.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis has ruled that the U.S. government cannot remove Abrego Garcia from the country before she decides the underlying case. She also ruled that he must remain within a 200-mile (320-kilometer) radius of the Maryland court while he is in custody.
On Wednesday, Xinis scheduled an Oct. 6 evidentiary hearing for the lawsuit that Abrego Garcia’s attorneys filed on Monday to challenge his deportation.
Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign said the government disagrees with the court’s order not to remove him while the lawsuit is pending but that it will comply.
Xinis will not rule on whether Abrego Garcia receives asylum or is deported. She is overseeing Abrego Garcia’s lawsuit to ensure that he can exercise his constitutionally protected rights during a process that his lawyers say should include immigration court proceedings and appeals.
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Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia. Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat contributed to this report.
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