Trump's bid to ship out wrongly deported migrant 'fizzles' out again
Matthew Chapman
October 10, 2025 8:51PM ET
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who lived in the U.S. legally with a work permit and was erroneously deported to El Salvador, is seen wearing a Chicago Bulls hat, in this handout image obtained by Reuters on April 9, 2025. Abrego Garcia Family/Handout via REUTERS
The Trump administration's latest move to re-deport Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia has failed once again.
According to Politico, U.S. officials have tried to remove him to Africa, but so far have found no country willing to take him: "A senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official testified that efforts to get the African countries of Uganda and Eswatini to accept the high-profile deportee have foundered in recent days. Another potential destination, Ghana, also seemed to fizzle Friday as that country’s foreign minister said unequivocally on X that Ghana would not agree to receive Abrego."
The Trump administration previously deported Abrego, a family man living in Maryland, to El Salvador, where he was locked up for weeks in the infamous CECOT megaprison, despite a judicial order prohibiting his deportation to that specific country.
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Homeland Security officials initially tried to claim they had no jurisdiction to push the government of El Salvador to return him, but after his case became a national story and generated mounting political pressure, they finally repatriated him to the United States.
Almost as soon as they had done so, federal officials charged Abrego with gang activities, in a case that legal experts have said is deeply defective and based on unreliable testimony. They also began proceedings to deport him again, this time looking for any country other than El Salvador that might accept him.
According to the report, Abrego has actually offered the administration a solution — but they rejected it.
"Abrego told the administration in August that he would accept deportation to Costa Rica," said the report. However, "One of his lawyers, Andrew Rossman, said Friday that the administration’s scattershot attempts to identify African countries instead show that the administration is intent on refusing the Costa Rica offer," telling U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, “We now know they are 0 for 3. Three strikes and you’re out. They have spun the globe and picked various places … to fail on purpose by selecting places that would be completely unpalatable for Mr. Abrego."
"What we’ve been getting in this courtroom is a lot of run-around,” Rossman added. |
