The wrongly-deported man who has become a flashpoint for Donald Trump’s aggressive anti-immigration efforts wants to seek asylum in the US, his lawyers have said.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 30, was detained in Baltimore on Monday by US Customs and Immigration Enforcement after he left a jail in Tennessee on Friday.
Mr Trump‘s administration has said it intends to deport him to the African country of Uganda.
Administration officials have said he is part of the gang MS-13, an allegation Mr Abrego Garcia denies.
The Salvadoran national’s lawyers are fighting in court to stop him from being deported, arguing he has the right to express fear of persecution and torture in Uganda.
Mr Abrego Garcia has also told immigration authorities he would prefer to be sent to Costa Rica if he must be removed from the US.
He was denied asylum in 2019 by a US immigration judge because he applied more than a year after he fled to the US.
Mr Abrego Garcia left El Salvador aged 16 around 2011 and travelled to Maryland to join his brother, who had become a US citizen.
Although the immigration judge denied Mr Abrego Garcia asylum, the judge issued an order shielding him from deportation to El Salvador because he faced credible threats of violence from a local gang there.
He was then released under federal supervision in 2019 and continued to live with his American wife and children in Maryland until this year, when Mr Trump’s administration deported him to a notorious prison in El Salvador in March.
The deportation violated the immigration judge’s order in 2019 barring Mr Abrego Garcia from being deported to El Salvador.
His wife then sued to bring him back and under mounting pressure and a US Supreme Court order, Mr Trump’s administration returned Mr Abrego Garcia to the US in June. He then faced federal charges of human smuggling.
Mr Trump’s administration moved to deport Mr Abrego Garcia on Monday.
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He has stated his intent to reopen his immigration case in Maryland and seek asylum again, Mr Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have said.
They argue sending him to Uganda would be punishment for successfully fighting deportation to El Salvador, refusing to plead guilty to the smuggling charges and for seeking release from jail in Tennessee.
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US District Judge Paula Xinis has ruled the US government cannot remove Mr Abrego Garcia from the country before she decides the underlying case.
On Wednesday, she scheduled an evidentiary hearing for 6 October for the lawsuit Mr Abrego Garcia’s attorneys filed on Monday to challenge his deportation.
