Featured Image Credit: Family Handout
Topics: El Salvador, Crime, US News
Callum Jones
A major update has been provided on the Maryland father who was sent to El Salvador's notorious mega prison earlier this year.
Kilmar Armando Abrego was sent to the Center for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) in El Salvador back in March due to an 'administrative error' by the Trump administration.
While Abrego Garcia did enter the country illegally sometime around 2011, a judge had previously decided in 2019 that he should not be deported because he was being threatened by a gang in his native country.
A Supreme Court ruled that Trump's administration must 'facilitate' Garcia's return after his accidental deportation was revealed, with him later being brought back to the US to face criminal charges.
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Abrego Garcia was charged in federal court in Tennessee in June with charges of conspiring to transport illegal immigrants into the US, according to attorney general Pam Bondi.
However, he was was freed from prison on Friday (August 22), with Abrego Garcia's lawyers claiming he declined an offer to plead guilty to human smuggling charges in exchange for deportation to Costa Rica.
The Costa Rican government said he would have legal status there after agreeing to accept him as a refugee, while Garcia's lawyers say he has until Monday (August 25) to accept the deal 'or else that offer will be off the table forever'.
Upon Garcia's release from prison this week, Garcia's legal representatives say they were informed of the US government's plan to deport him to Uganda.
"The DOJ, DHS, and ICE are using their collective powers to force Mr. Abrego to choose between a guilty plea followed by relative safety, or rendition to Uganda, where his safety and liberty would be under threat," Abrego Garcia's lawyers wrote in a court filing.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney for Abrego Garcia, told CNN: "The government’s decision to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda makes it painfully clear that they are using the immigration system to punish him for exercising his constitutional rights.
"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. This is not justice; it is retaliation."
Abrego Garcia is expected to appear in a Baltimore immigration court on Monday (August 25), which could see him deported within days if the judge approves the Trump administration's request.