Hi everyone!
On Friday, amid all the news about Ghislaine Maxwell and the raid on John Bolton's Maryland home, another ongoing story made headlines, that of the plight of "Maryland man" accused of being a human trafficker and alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Abrego Garcia has been detained—again—and this time he's likely being sent out of the country for good. The Department of Homeland Security is planning to send him to Uganda, a land-locked nation in central east Africa bordering Kenya, DRC, South Sudan, Rwanda and Tanzania.
When a Tennessee judge on Friday released Abrego Garcia pending trial, sending him back to Maryland under restrictions, the court did so knowing that DHS had already said that if he was released pending trial he would be deported. He had been returned to the US to face human trafficking charges where he was indicted in a Tennessee court. ICE said on Friday, after Abrego Garcia's release, that they intended to deport him "to Uganda no earlier than 72 hours from now." They had previously said that were he released to await trial, the deportation order would remain in effect.
The story of Abrego Garcia has been a looping, twisted one. He had been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this year and shipped off to El Salvador's CECOT prison under a deal with that nation's President Bukele, who agreed to take a bunch of illegal immigrants, for a fee. But he'd had a deportation order on him since 2019 and had been illegal in the country prior to that.
Abrego Garcia became a cause celebré for lots of Democrat pols who went down to El Salvador to visit him in prison. Maryland Senator Chris Murphy went down and had margaritas with the man while in the US pundits blasted Trump for deporting this guy who they alleged had done nothing wrong. Then it came out that he was suspected of being involved in human trafficking after a traffic stop in Tennessee found him transporting a bunch of people to Texas. And he had been rounded up in Maryland previously as part of an MS-13 sting at a Home Depot. Then there were the instances where his wife had reported him for domestic abuse.
And the thing is, there was a deportation detainer on the man going back to 2019. It's unclear why he wasn't deported at the time, other than that he'd told a judge he was afraid of going home to El Salvador. The judge said he could definitely be sent out of the country, but not to El Salvador because he feared the gang activity there. As a child, his family had been threatened by gangs, who apparently were opposed to his mother's home-based food business. By the time he was sent back to his home country, however, things were drastically different.
Bukele had changed the nation, brought down the crime rate, including the tremendous number of homicides, and the country of which Abrego Garcia had been afraid of was no longer one to fear, per DHS. This didn't stop media from proclaiming that he was just a good guy, albeit a good guy with gang tattoos who was in the country illegally, had beaten his wife, and may have been involved in trafficking illegal immigrants across the US. It was the allegation of human trafficking that the Department of Justice determined needed to be prosecuted, and so Abrego Garcia was returned to face trial in Tennessee.
The only reason I can see to bring him back to face that trial would be to get more info on this alleged human trafficking ring in which he was involved. Otherwise, why not just leave him where he was? And the Tennessee judge said outright that the court intended to release him pending trial, at which DHS said he'd be subject to the deportation detainer that had never been lifted, yet the judge released him anyway. Upon arrival back in Maryland, where he was lodged at his brother's home, he was told he must report to ICE in Baltimore. Where he was then detained.
Now perhaps he's heading to Uganda. Uganda has made a temporary deal with the US that they would take third-party nationals who are under deportation order but don't want to go home. They have rules, however, that the person doesn't have a criminal record (Abrego Garcia does not, just a pending trial and a wife who dropped her domestic abuse complaints), and is not an unaccompanied minor. They'd also prefer people from other African nations.