Kilmer Abrego Garcia reports to the Baltimore Ice Field Office
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is scheduled to report to the Baltimore Ice Field office on Monday morning and could face deportation.
Scripps News -WMAR Baltimore
Maryland residents, whose illegal deportation spurred protests against Trump’s administration plans, spurred protests to send immigrants to Salvador’s mega prison.
Kilmer Abrego Garcia, 30, reported to the Baltimore immigration and customs enforcement scene three days after being released from criminal custody in Tennessee, and returned to his Maryland home. He spent more than five months in detention, including his home country of El Salvador, in a prison known for its tough circumstances.
Abrego Garcia arrives at the ice office with his wife and brothers and is quickly surrounded by a crowd of supporters chanting “si se puede” for “Yes, we are yes.” He and his wife hugged the building in the lobby before proceeding through the security checkpoint.
His lawyer, Simon Sandoval Moshenberg, said his client was taken into custody at the time of reporting the interview. According to his lawyers, US officials have offered to expel him to Costa Rica if he pleaded guilty to transporting immigrants who live illegally to the United States.
Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty. His lawyers say they took part in government and judicial debates to avoid deportation to Uganda.
Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem has denounced the “activist freedom judge” who hampered administrative efforts to rule out people living in the United States suspected of committing a crime.
“By ordering this monster to be loosened in American cities, this judge shows that he is completely ignoring the safety of Americans,” Noem said. “We will not stop fighting until this Salvadoran man faces justice and leaves our country.”
Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal worker living outside of Washington, DC, has become the face of President Donald Trump’s radical and controversial deportation tactics. Abrego Garcia entered the country illegally around 2012 as a teenager. Immigration officers issued a final removal order in 2019, but they said he could not release him to his native Salvador due to credible fears of persecution by the country’s gangs.
Contribution: Reuters
