A Salvadoran man at the center of a long-running immigration battle is asking a federal judge for the chance to seek asylum in the United States, after years of detention, deportation, and disputed allegations. Lawyers for 30-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia told a Maryland court on Wednesday that their client fears persecution and torture if deported to Uganda, the country where U.S. authorities now want to send him. They argue that the move would amount to punishment for his resistance to deportation orders, refusal to plead guilty to criminal charges, and efforts to secure his release from detention.
Abrego Garcia’s case has drawn international attention since March 2023, when he was wrongly deported to a notorious Salvadoran prison despite a court order. He was later returned to the U.S. but quickly detained again on federal charges of human smuggling. The government has also accused him of belonging to the MS-13 gang, an allegation he has consistently denied. Immigration officials say he entered the U.S. illegally in 2011 as a teenager fleeing gang violence in El Salvador. He later married a U.S. citizen and has children in the country. In 2019, his initial asylum claim was denied because it was filed more than a year after his arrival. However, he was granted “withholding of removal” to El Salvador after an immigration judge found credible threats to his safety there.
Now, the Biden administration is seeking to deport him to Uganda, a country he has no ties to. His lawyers argue that this option is not only unlawful but potentially part of a controversial arrangement between Washington and Kampala, under which Uganda accepts deportees in exchange for reduced political pressure on its long-serving president, Yoweri Museveni. Abrego Garcia has told authorities that if removal is unavoidable, he would prefer to be sent to Costa Rica, which has a more established system for refugee protection.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis has scheduled a hearing for October 6 and ruled that he cannot be deported before then. Immigration rights groups say the outcome of his case could set an important precedent on how far the U.S. government can go in designating third countries for deportation.
