US Politics
Trump administration taunts Kilmar Abrego Garcia as ICE reveals plans to deport him to tiny African country
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President Donald Trump’s administration has threatened to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to four different countries within the span of less than two weeks. It started moments after he was released from federal custody in Tennessee only to land in an immigration detention center in Maryland a few days later.
Immigration officials outlined a plan for his removal to Costa Rica if he agreed to plead guilty to human smuggling charges. If he didn’t, he would be sent to Uganda.
Last week, officials suggested he could be sent back to his home country of El Salvador if he successfully reopens a case for asylum in the United States.
Then on Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said he will be sent to Eswatini, a tiny African nation at the center of the administration’s attempts to detain immigrants in countries where they have no citizenship, family or other connections.
An email from an ICE official to Abrego Garcia’s legal team said the administration chose Eswatini because he has stated that he fears persecution and torture in Uganda.
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“That claim of fear is hard to take seriously, especially given that you have claimed (through your attorneys) that you fear persecution or torture in at least 22 different countries,” the official wrote. “Nonetheless, we hereby notify you that your new country of removal is Eswatini, Africa.”
“Homie is afraid of the entire western hemisphere,” the Department of Homeland Security wrote on X.
In March, the Salvadoran immigrant was mistakenly deported from his home in Maryland to a brutal prison in his home country, igniting a high-profile legal battle for his return at the center of Trump’s anti-immigration agenda.
After repeatedly swatting away multiple court orders for his return, the administration abruptly brought him back to the U.S. to face a criminal indictment in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty.
But while that criminal case is still ongoing, with a trial tentatively scheduled for January 2026, the administration is trying to deport him again.
Abrego Garcia is now pursuing his freedom through several different courts: he is asking a judge in Tennessee to dismiss his criminal indictment, challenging his arrest and removal in another federal court, and by seeking asylum through an immigration court.
In immigration court in Baltimore, Abrego Garcia is seeking to reopen his 2019 case and apply for asylum again. In that case, an immigration court judge had blocked the government from deporting him back to his home country for humanitarian reasons.
But administration officials have argued that reopening the asylum case would essentially void that ruling, making him vulnerable for removal to El Salvador — or anywhere else.
“Should the Immigration Court grant the respondent’s motion to reopen, DHS will pursue the respondent’s removal to El Salvador,” government lawyers wrote.
The earlier ruling that prevented the government from deporting him “will no longer be valid” if his case is allowed to move forward, lawyers said.
Administration officials pivoted just days later, telling Abrego Garcia that ICE plans to deport him to Eswatini, a country that is reportedly offering to detain deported immigrants in exchange for tens of millions of dollars from the U.S. government.
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The administration resumed a policy of deporting immigrant detainees to so-called third countries in July, starting with the African kingdom formerly known as Swaziland.
Five men with criminal convictions are currently imprisoned there, including at least one Jamaican national who completed his prison sentence and has no further criminal charges.
Eswatini’s government at one point requested $500 million in exchange for the operation, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.
Eswatini diplomats told The Independent in July that they were blindsided by the Trump administration’s plan to send a group of men with criminal convictions to their country; they had only learned about the flights from social media.
In July, the Eswatini government said the men “will be repatriated” and the United Nations International Organization for Migration is working with the country to “facilitate the transit of these inmates to their countries of origin.”
Nearly two months later those men remain imprisoned in Eswatini.
A spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration told The Independent that the agency has met with deportees imprisoned there “to assess needs and provide post-arrival humanitarian support in line with our mandate.”
Homeland Security has defended Eswatini’s role in the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, telling The Independent that officials are “using every tool available to get criminal illegal aliens out of American communities and out of our country.”
The Independent has requested comment from representatives for Abrego Garcia and the kingdom of Eswatini.