The Department of Justice has come up with yet another African nation with a dismal human rights record to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man wrongfully deported to El Salvador.
In a brief filing Friday, prosecutors described Liberia as a “a thriving democracy and one of the United States’s closest partners on the African continent,” arguing that the country’s constitution “provides robust protections for human rights.”
The government claimed that because Abrego Garcia had not included Liberia on a list of 20 countries to which he feared deportation, he was free to be removed there.
But the U.S. State Department had a vastly different description of the African nation just last year, reporting “significant” human rights issues, including “arbitrary or unlawful killings” and “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.”
This is the latest effort by the Trump administration to ship off Abrego Garcia to an African nation.
In August, immigration officials initially offered Abrego Garcia a plea deal: if he admitted he was guilty of charges related to human smuggling, he could be removed to Costa Rica. When he rejected the offer, the Trump administration threatened to deport him to Uganda, Eswatini, or Ghana. But U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of Maryland forbade his immediate removal and said that federal law may require him to be removed to a country of his choice. In any case, all three countries refused to take him.
Earlier this month, independent journalist Adam Klasfield reported that Xinis ordered the government to provide testimony on efforts to remove Garcia to Costa Rica, which he had ultimately selected as the country of his choice—but the government’s witness didn’t know anything.
“You come today with a witness that knows nothing about Costa Rica,” Xinis said, referring to Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign.
Ensign claimed that Abrego Garcia had told an immigration judge he was afraid to be deported to Costa Rica, but Xinis found that the exact opposite was true.
“That’s very troubling to me,” Xinis told Ensign.
Costa Rican officials had put in writing that they had no intention to remove Abrego Garcia back to El Salvador once he was in their custody. Klasfield noted on X Friday that the government’s latest filing included no assurances that Abrego Garcia would not be removed from Liberia back to CECOT, the notorious megaprison in El Salvador where he was initially sent.
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