NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Immigration officials plan to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda after he turned down an offer to go to Costa Rica instead of facing jail time and pleading guilty to human smuggling charges, his defense attorneys informed the court Saturday.
The offer to move to Costa Rica surfaced late Thursday and included a condition for him to remain in jail, according to a brief filed in Tennessee, where the criminal charges were placed. Once Abrego Garcia was released from jail on Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement alerted his attorneys of his impending deportation to Uganda and required him to report to immigration officials on Monday.
Latterly on Friday, “the government informed Mr. Abrego that he has until first thing Monday morning — precisely when he must report to ICE’s Baltimore Field Office — to accept a plea in exchange for deportation to Costa Rica, or else that offer will be off the table forever,” his defense lawyers noted.
They declined to say whether he is still considering the offer.
Accompanying the brief was a letter from the Costa Rican government confirming that Abrego Garcia would be accepted there as a legal immigrant without the risk of detention. Additionally, Costa Rica’s Spanish-speaking environment would align with Abrego Garcia’s native language from El Salvador. According to the brief, he would be deported to Costa Rica only after completing his sentence for the smuggling charges.
Abrego Garcia’s case highlighted tensions in President Donald Trump’s immigration policy following his accidental deportation to El Salvador in March, even after a judge recognized his “well-founded fear” of violence there. With a court order, Trump’s administration returned him to the U.S. in June, subsequently arresting him on human smuggling charges.
He has entered a plea of not guilty and requested the judge dismiss the case, asserting it is a punitive response for contesting his deportation to El Salvador. The Saturday filing served as an addition to the dismissal motion, arguing that the threat to deport him to Uganda further illustrates the prosecution’s retaliatory nature.
“Despite having requested and received assurances from the government of Costa Rica that Mr. Abrego would be accepted there, within minutes of his release from pretrial custody, an ICE representative informed Mr. Abrego’s counsel that the government intended to deport Mr. Abrego to Uganda and ordered him to report to ICE’s Baltimore Field Office Monday morning,” the brief says, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The smuggling charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. There were nine passengers in the car, and officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was allowed to continue driving with only a warning.
A Department of Homeland Security agent later testified that he didn’t begin investigating the traffic stop until this April, when the government was facing mounting pressure to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.
Abrego Garcia has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years. Although he was deemed eligible for pretrial release last month, he remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed. A recent ruling in a separate case in Maryland required ICE to provide 72 hours’ notice before initiating deportation proceedings — time to allow a prospective deportee to mount a defense. An email from ICE sent to attorneys at 4:01 p.m. on Friday refers to that decision.
“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 states. Uganda recently agreed to take deportees from the U.S., provided they do not have criminal records and are not unaccompanied minors.
Federal officials have argued that Abrego Garcia can be deported because he came to the U.S. illegally and because a U.S. immigration judge deemed him eligible for expulsion in 2019, just not to his native El Salvador.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia’s lead attorney in the Maryland lawsuit against the Trump administration, said Saturday that the government is trying to use the immigration system to punish his client.
“There is a perfectly reasonable option available, Costa Rica, where he his family can visit him easily, but instead they are attempting to send him halfway across the world, to a country with documented human rights abuses and where he does not even speak the language,” he said in a statement.
