Judge blocks Kilmer Abrego Garcia’s deportation after ice detention
After Ice again detains him in Baltimore, he suspends deportation of Father Maryland, Kilmer Abrego Garcia.
- District Judge Paula Sinis set up an evidence hearing on October 6th.
- Judgments regarding the lawsuit may not be issued until November.
Kilmer Abrego Garcia will not be able to deport the false deportation case, which he has become a symbol of President Donald Trump’s hard-hit immigration agenda, until at least October, a federal judge ordered on August 27th.
District Judge Paula Sinis set up an evidence hearing on October 6th, until Abrego Garcia banned removal from the United States and Sinis gives her ruling. The judge said he would do so within 30 days of the hearing.
Abrego Garcia, 30, fled his hometown of El Salvador at the age of 16 and lived with his brothers in Maryland. His court battle began when he was taken into custody in March after traffic stopped near his home in Bertlesville, Maryland. After a while he was illegally exiled to a mega prison in Salvador.
He was returned to the United States in June, but was released from criminal custody in Tennessee last week and remained in custody until he returned to his Washington suburb home in Bertlesville, Maryland. Three days later he was taken into custody and caused another legal action.
For now, he is being held in ice custody in Virginia and is renewing his bid for asylum in the US. A similar bid was rejected in 2019 after the application failed within 12 months of arriving in the US.
The Trump administration describes Abrego Garcia as a member of the MS-13 gang, a human trafficker, serial domestic abuser and a child predator. He denied all of these claims.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers say that US officials offered to expel him to Costa Rica if they pleaded guilty to transporting immigrants who live illegally to the United States. When he refused to enter the guilty plea, the US government warned that he could be deported to Uganda.
One of his lawyers, Simon Sandoval Moshenberg, said earlier this week that a plea was held to avoid deportation to Uganda.
“They keep Costa Rica as a carrot and Uganda as a stick,” Sandoval Morshenberg said. “They are weaponizing the immigration system in a completely unconstitutional way.”
Contribution: Reuters
