BALTIMORE — The U.S. government plans to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia and could do so as early as Oct. 31, according to a Friday court filing.
The Salvadoran national’s case has become a magnet for opposition to President Trump’s immigration crackdown since he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, in violation of a settlement agreement.
He was returned to the U.S. in June after the U.S. Supreme Court said the administration had to work to bring him back. Since he cannot be re-deported to El Salvador, the U.S. government has been seeking to deport him to various African countries.
A federal judge in Maryland had previously barred his immediate deportation. Abrego Garcia’s lawsuit there claims the Trump administration is illegally using the deportation process to punish him for its embarrassment over his mistaken deportation.
A Friday court filing from the Department of Homeland Security says that “Liberia is a thriving democracy and one of the United States’s closest partners on the African continent.” Its national language is English, its constitution “provides robust protections for human rights,” and Liberia is “committed to the humane treatment of refugees,” the filing asserts. It concludes that Abrego Garcia could be deported as soon as Friday.
The court filing assessment is in contrast to a U.S. State Department report last year that detailed a human rights record in Liberia including extrajudicial killings, torture and serious restrictions on press freedom.
“After failed attempts 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,” a statement from attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg reads. “Costa Rica stands ready to accept him as a refugee, a viable and lawful option. Yet the government has chosen a course calculated to inflict maximum hardship. These actions are punitive, cruel, and unconstitutional.”
Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years. He immigrated to the U.S. illegally as a teenager, but in 2019 an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador, where he faces a “well-founded fear” of violence from a gang that targeted his family, according to court filings. In a separate action in immigration court, Abrego Garcia has applied for asylum in the United States.
Additionally, Abrego Garcia is facing criminal charges in federal court in Tennessee, where he has pleaded not guilty to human smuggling. He has filed a motion to dismiss the charges, claiming the prosecution is vindictive.