The Department of Justice filed a motion to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia. File Photo by Shawn Thew/EPA
Oct. 24 (UPI) — The Department of Justice filed a motion Friday to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia, a country to which he has no ties.
The Department of Homeland Security has received “diplomatic assurances regarding the treatment of third-country individuals removed to Liberia from the United States and are making the final necessary arrangements for [Abrego Garcia’s] removal,” the filing said.
DHS expects “to be able to effectuate removal as soon as Oct. 31.”
Abrego Garcia, a Baltimore resident, is a native of El Salvador. He was accidentally deported to a Salvadoran prison in March against a court order. In recent months, DHS has been looking for a new place to send him. It’s tried Uganda, Eswatini and Ghana, but those countries refused.
But an immigration judge ordered that Abrego Garcia not be removed from the United States.
Abrego Garcia’s attorney said the government “has chosen yet another path that feels designed to inflict maximum hardship.”
“Having struck out with Uganda, Eswatini and Ghana, ICE now seeks to deport our client Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia — a country with which he has no connection, thousands of miles from his family and home in Maryland,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg told ABC News. “Costa Rica has agreed to accept him as a refugee, and remains a viable and lawful option.”
The DOJ said Liberia is “a thriving democracy” and is “committed to the humane treatment of refugees.”
Abrego Garcia has been accused of being a gang member and of human trafficking, stemming from a 2002 traffic stop in Tennessee. Police stopped the vehicle in Tennessee and found several Latino men with no identification. Charges for that case were filed this year. He still awaits trial.
On Oct. 4, a federal judge in Tennessee granted a motion by Abrego Garcia’s defense team that seeks a hearing for vindictive prosecution.
“The timing of Abrego’s indictment suggests a realistic likelihood that senior DOJ and [Homeland Security] officials may have induced Acting U.S. Attorney [Robert] McGuire (albeit unknowingly) to criminally charge Abrego in retaliation for his Maryland lawsuit,” U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. wrote.
The Maryland lawsuit was Garcia’s successful legal challenge in a federal court in which he showed DHS made a mistake when it deported him to El Salvador.
Federal officials also contend Abrego Garcia was a member of the Salvadoran MS-13 gang, though he and his family deny it. They argue that Abrego Garcia fled El Salvador because of gang violence.