Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia have asked a judge to open another asylum case for their client after a judge blocked the Trump administration from immediately deporting Abrego Garcia to Uganda.
The Trump administration claims that Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador, is a member of the MS-13 gang. Abrego Garcia—who resides in Maryland with his wife, an American citizen—has denied the allegation.
“At 5 pm yesterday, Petitioner filed a motion to reopen before an immigration judge … to seek asylum in the United States,” his attorneys said in a court filing on Aug. 26. They requested that both parties in the case allow up to two weeks to allow an “immigration judge to resolve that motion.”
Abrego Garcia’s case first came to national attention after he was deported to a Salvadoran prison despite a court order delaying his removal from the United States.
He was brought back to the United States in June to face charges in Tennessee of allegedly assisting in transporting illegal immigrants while living in Maryland. Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty.
He was released last week while awaiting trial, but was taken into custody on Monday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after checking in with the agency’s Baltimore, Maryland, field office.
While Abrego Garcia was initially offered a plea offer for deportation to Costa Rica, the administration has since raised the prospect of deporting him to Uganda after he rejected the deal.
In the emergency filing submitted to the court on Aug. 25, his attorneys claimed that he was again eligible to seek asylum after his temporary removal from and reentry into the United States.
They challenged the legality of his deportation to Uganda, saying “he would face persecution and torture, without observance of required procedure, thus violating his rights … and due process.” The filing contended that the change from Costa Rica to Uganda was retaliatory for turning down the plea offer.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis on Aug. 25 prohibited the administration from deporting Abrego Garcia until a schedule could be set.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia’s lead immigration attorney, told reporters that Abrego Garcia is being held at a detention facility in Virginia.
He said Abrego Garcia had notified the U.S. government that he would accept deportation to Costa Rica, which had agreed to grant him refugee status.
“We don’t know whether Uganda will even let him walk around freely in Kampala or whether he’ll be inside of a Ugandan jail cell, much less whether they are going to let him stay,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “Costa Rica is not justice … It is an acceptably less-bad option.”
Announcing his rearrest by ICE, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in an Aug. 25 social media post that “President Trump is not going to allow this illegal alien, who is an MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator to terrorize American citizens any longer.”
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have denied that their client is a member of MS-13.
In an earlier lawsuit, Xinis questioned the underlying evidence of his affiliation with the gang that had resulted from an immigration proceeding during Trump’s first term of office.
The Department of Justice stood by the claim in a May indictment, in which the agency accused Abrego Garcia of furthering illegal activity through his membership in the gang.
That case is ongoing, and Abrego Garcia has moved to dismiss the indictment on the basis that the Trump administration was allegedly bringing a selective and vindictive prosecution.
In the motion to dismiss, his attorney alleged that the Trump administration was retaliating against Abrego Garcia for fighting his deportation and winning.
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