Immigration enforcement took Kilmar Abrego Garcia into federal custody in Maryland on Monday following his release from criminal custody last week.
Abrego Garcia’s attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said when Abrego Garcia left a jail in Tennessee on Friday, he was given notice to check in on Monday morning. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said there was “no need” for him to go into custody again.
“The only reason that they’ve chosen to take him into detention is to punish him,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said Monday.
After Abrego Garcia reported to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, his lawyers filed a new federal lawsuit aiming to stop his removal before he has a full court hearing.
The Trump administration mistakenly deported Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran native, in March to El Salvador, where he was held in a notorious prison for months. A judge ruled in 2019 that Abrego Garcia could be deported but not to El Salvador, due to a threat of violence.
Abrego Garcia returned to the United States in June and was held in jail. A judge ruled that he should be released from detention ahead of a trial set for January. He has been accused of human smuggling stemming from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. He was released from pretrial detention on Friday.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said he was offered a plea deal that included deportation to Costa Rica, which his lawyers indicated he would be willing to accept. The Costa Rican government said Abrego Garcia would be welcomed as an immigrant and not face detention.
Another recent ruling in a different Maryland immigration case required ICE to provide 72 hours’ notice before initiating deportation proceedings. An email from ICE sent to Abrego Garcia’s attorneys at 4:01 p.m. on Friday refers to that decision, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed he was being processed “for removal to Uganda.”
“Please let this email serve as notice that DHS may remove your client, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to Uganda no earlier than 72 hours from now (absent weekends),” it stated.
Uganda, in recent weeks, has agreed to take those deported from the U.S., so long as they do not have criminal records and are not unaccompanied minors.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said that if he didn’t take the Costa Rica offer, the Trump administration would try to deport him to Uganda, where his native Spanish is not widely spoken.
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Abrego Garcia is married to an American wife and has children. He has lived in Maryland for years.
Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) has advocated Abrego Garcia’s right to due process, saying Sunday on CBS News that “I just simply want a court and a judge to decide what is going to be the future fate of this case and all cases like this, and not simply the president of the United States or the secretary of homeland security who is trying to be judge, juror, prosecutor, and executioner inside this case.”
