The federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked the deportation to Uganda of a Salvadoran man whose case has become central to the controversy surrounding former US President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, 30, was wrongly deported to El Salvador in March but later returned to the United States. He was arrested again in Baltimore on Monday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced on X.
Abrego Garcia, who had recently been released from a Tennessee jail where he faces human smuggling charges, had been allowed to return home to Maryland pending trial. The Department of Homeland Security, however, said he would “be processed for removal to Uganda.”
His lawyers immediately challenged the decision, and District Judge Paula Xinis temporarily halted the deportation while further hearings are held.
Abrego Garcia had reported to ICE in Baltimore on Monday as part of his release conditions but was immediately taken back into custody. Outside the ICE field office, protesters held signs reading “Free Kilmar” and “Remove Trump” while chanting “Shame, shame.”
The attempt to deport him to Uganda marks a dramatic twist in a case that has become a test of Trump’s aggressive approach to illegal immigration. Abrego Garcia had been living in the US under protected status since 2019, after a court found he could face harm if returned to his home country.
In March, however, he was among more than 200 people sent to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison as part of Trump’s immigration drive. The Justice Department later admitted he had been deported “in error” and returned him to US soil — only for him to be detained again on human smuggling charges.
Abrego Garcia denies the charges, but the Trump administration insists he is a member of the violent MS-13 gang involved in migrant smuggling.
Last week, federal officials offered him a deal: remain in custody, plead guilty to human smuggling, and be deported to Costa Rica. He rejected the offer.
“That they’re holding Costa Rica as a carrot and using Uganda as a stick to try to coerce him to plead guilty is such clear evidence that they’re weaponizing the immigration system in a manner that is completely unconstitutional,” his lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg told reporters.
The case has become emblematic of Trump’s immigration crackdown, hailed by his supporters as tough enforcement, but condemned by legal experts and human rights advocates as chaotic, unlawful, and unconstitutional.
