Kilmar Abrego Garcia faces new deportation efforts after ICE detains him
in Baltimore
[August 26, 2025]
By BRIAN WITTE, TRAVIS LOLLER, MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and BEN
FINLEY
BALTIMORE (AP) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case has become a
flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s aggressive effort to remove
noncitizens from the U.S., was detained by immigration authorities in
Baltimore on Monday to face renewed efforts to deport him after a brief
period of freedom.
Abrego Garcia's attorneys quickly filed a lawsuit to fight his
deportation until a court has heard his claim for protection, stating
that the U.S. could place him in a country where “his safety cannot be
assured.”
The lawsuit triggered a blanket court order that automatically pauses
deportation efforts for two days. The order applies to immigrants in
Maryland who are challenging their detention.
Within hours of Abrego Garcia's detention, his lawyers spoke with
Department of Justice attorneys and a federal judge in Maryland, who
warned Abrego Garcia cannot be removed from the U.S. “at this juncture”
because he must be allowed to exercise his constitutional right to
contest deportation.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said overlapping court orders
temporarily prohibit the government from removing Abrego Garcia, and
that she would extend her own temporary restraining order barring his
deportation.
Drew Ensign, a Justice Department attorney, told the judge that Abrego
Garcia’s “removal is not imminent" and that the process often takes
time.
Crowd yells ‘shame!’
Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old Maryland construction worker and Salvadoran
national, spoke at a rally before he turned himself in.
“This administration has hit us hard, but I want to tell you guys
something: God is with us, and God will never leave us,” Abrego Garcia
said, speaking through a translator. “God will bring justice to all the
injustice we are suffering.”
Roughly 200 people gathered, prayed and crowded around Abrego Garcia
while he walked into the offices for U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement in Baltimore, where he was detained. When his lawyer and
wife walked out without him, the crowd yelled “Shame!”
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X that
Abrego Garcia was being processed for deportation. U.S. Attorney General
Pam Bondi told Trump during a meeting in the Oval Office that Abrego
Garcia “will no longer terrorize our country.”
Brief reunion with family
Abrego Garcia lived in Maryland for years with his American wife and
children, and worked in construction. He was wrongfully deported in
March to a notorious prison in his native El Salvador because the Trump
administration believed he was a member of the MS-13 gang, an allegation
that Abrego Garcia denies.
His removal violated an immigration judge’s 2019 ruling that shielded
him from deportation to his native country because he had “well-founded
fear” of threats by a gang there.
Abrego Garcia’s wife sued to bring him back. Facing a U.S. Supreme Court
order, the Trump administration returned him in June. He was
subsequently charged in Tennessee with human smuggling. He has pleaded
not guilty and asked a judge to dismiss the case on ground of vindictive
prosecution.
The allegations stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding.
Abrego Garcia was driving with nine passengers in the car, and officers
discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. He was allowed
to continue driving with a warning.
The Trump administration has said it wants to deport Abrego Garcia
before his trial, alleging he is a danger to the community and an MS-13
gang member.
A federal judge in Tennessee determined that Abrego Garcia was not a
flight risk or a danger. He was released from jail Friday afternoon and
returned to his family in Maryland.
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People attend a protest rally at the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement field office in Baltimore, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025, to
support Kilmar Abrego Garcia. (AP Photo/KT Kanazawich)
Video released by advocates of the reunion showed a room decorated
with streamers, flowers and signs. He embraced loved ones and
thanked them “for everything.”
Uganda or Costa Rica
Federal officials argue Abrego Garcia can be deported because he
came to the U.S. illegally and that the immigration judge's 2019
ruling deemed him eligible for expulsion, just not to his native El
Salvador.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia's lead immigration
attorney, told reporters Monday that Abrego Garcia is being held in
a detention facility in Virginia.
Trump administration officials have said Abrego Garcia could be sent
to the East African nation of Uganda, which recently agreed to take
deportees from the U.S., provided they do not have criminal records
and are not unaccompanied minors.
Abrego Garcia's attorneys have raised concerns about human-rights
abuses in Uganda, and say they don't know when he'll have a
reasonable fear interview, when he can express fears of persecution
or torture in the country where the U.S. wants to send him.
There are also unanswered questions about whether he could be
imprisoned or sent on to El Salvador, which is prohibited by the
2019 order.
“We don’t know whether Uganda will even let him walk around freely
in Kampala or whether he’ll be inside of a Ugandan jail cell, much
less whether they are going to let him stay,” Sandoval-Moshenberg
said.
If immigration officials determine that Abrego Garcia lacks a
reasonable fear of being sent to Uganda, he should be able to ask a
U.S. immigration judge to review that decision, his lawyer said. And
if the immigration judge upholds the determination, Abrego Garcia
should be able to bring it to the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Sandoval-Moshenberg said that's the process when someone is slated
for deportation to their native country. And he said it should be
the same for third-country deportations as well.
"This is all so very new and unprecedented. ... We will see what the
government’s position on that is," he said.
Abrego Garcia informed ICE over the weekend that Costa Rica was an
acceptable country of removal because he had “received assurances
from Costa Rica that they would give him refugee status, that he
would be at liberty in that country, and that he will not be
re-deported onto El Salvador,” his lawyer said.
“Costa Rica is not justice,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “It is an
acceptably less-bad option.”
The notice to ICE about Costa Rica was separate from an offer made
by federal prosecutors in Tennessee to send Abrego Garcia to the
Central American nation in exchange for pleading guilty to human
smuggling charges. Abrego Garcia declined the proposal.
___
Loller reported from Nashville, Kunzelman from Washington, D.C., and
Finley from Norfolk, Virginia.
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