Topline
Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s attorneys say federal prosecutors offered him a deal that would see him deported to Costa Rica in exchange for pleading guilty to human smuggling charges before he was released from jail on Friday, but are now threatening to send him to the African nation of Uganda as early as next week.
Abrego Garcia, who was born in El Salvador but lived in Maryland when the Trump administration mistakenly deported him in March, was released from federal custody Friday but still faces trial on criminal charges brought by the administration during his controversial removal.
Federal prosecutors offered to send Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica if he pleaded guilty and served “any sentence imposed by the Court,” his attorneys said in a filing on Saturday—an offer they called a “last-ditch effort to forestall” his eventual release on Friday.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers also filed a letter from Costa Rica’s ministry of public security, confirming they received an offer from the U.S., and would provide Garcia with refugee status and not seek to detain or deport him back to El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia declined to extend his stay in jail and was released to his family in Maryland on Friday.
On Friday afternoon, government attorneys notified Abrego Garcia to report to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement custody in Baltimore on Monday, and that he could be sent to Uganda “no earlier than 72 hours from now (absent weekends),” according to a pair of letters attached by Abrego Garcia’s lawyers to the filing.
Attorneys for Abrego Garcia argued that the efforts show both the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security were “working in lockstep to coerce Mr. Abrego into accepting a guilty plea,” calling the efforts “vindictive” and asking for the case to be dismissed.
Abrego Garcia, a sheet metal apprentice and father of three living in Maryland, became one of the most visible individuals impacted by the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts after court filings revealed his deportation to El Salvador and imprisonment in the country’s controversial CECOT prison came after an “administrative error.” The Trump administration doubled down on the deportation and stalled efforts to return him to the country, insisting that Abrego Garcia was linked to the notorious gang MS-13. Abrego Garcia finally returned to the U.S. in June to face federal charges over an alleged conspiracy to transport undocumented aliens. The charges, which were brought by a federal grand jury indictment, relate to a 2022 incident when Abrego Garcia was stopped for speeding in Tennessee with eight passengers in a vehicle. Abrego Garcia told officers that the passengers were other construction workers. He was not charged with anything at the time and given a warning after officers noted he was driving with an expired driver’s license. Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges.