cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/48561685
by Anita Wadhwani, Maryland Matters
August 23, 2025The Trump administration intends to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda after he rejected a last-minute deal to remain in jail, plead guilty to human smuggling charges and be deported to Costa Rica, a legal notice filed Saturday by his attorneys said.
The behind-the-scenes ultimatum bolsters defense claims that Abrego is the target of “selective and vindictive prosecution” by the government for contesting his wrongful deportation to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador in March, Abrego’s lawyers wrote.
The revelations come one day after Abrego was released from a Tennessee jail where he was awaiting a January trial on human smuggling charges. The sheet-metal apprentice was on his way back to Maryland, where he lives in Prince George’s County with his wife and children, when his attorneys received an emailed notice at 4:01 p.m. Friday from Immigration and Customs Enforcement saying it may send him to Uganda.
Abrego, an undocumented immigrant who was arrested in March, was swiftly and erroneously deported to a prison in El Salvador, even though a previous court order prohibited his deportation there because of possible threats from Salvadoran gangs. The Trump administration acknowledged his deportation was a mistake, and since then his case has focused unwelcome public scrutiny on the administration’s immigration crackdown tactics.
On return to the U.S., Abrego was taken to Tennessee to face charges that an unremarkable 2022 traffic stop there with several immigrants in his car was really part of a human smuggling ring. Abrego has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
In a deal offered by the government late Thursday, it promised to deport Abrego to Costa Rica where he could live freely if he remained jailed until Monday, pleaded guilty to the Tennessee human smuggling charges and served the sentence imposed by the court, his attorneys wrote. The government of Costa Rica had agreed to take him, the filing said.
Abrego’s attorneys informed the Acting U.S. Attorney Rob McGuire, who is prosecuting the Tennessee case, they would “of course, communicate the government’s proposal to Mr. Abrego” but declined to agree to a demand that he remain incarcerated until Monday.
Abrego was released shortly after 2 p.m. Friday from a detention facility in Putnam County, Tennessee. Within minutes of Abrego’s release, a representative of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, informed his attorneys they intended to deport him to Uganda and ordered him to report to the agency’s field office in Baltimore, his attorneys wrote.
“The only thing that happened between Thursday — Costa Rica — and Friday — Uganda — was Mr. Abrego’s exercise of his legal entitlement to release under the Bail Reform Act and the Fifth Amendment,” his attorneys wrote.
Government officials again, late Friday evening, informed Abrego he has until first thing Monday morning to accept a plea in exchange for deportation to Costa Rica “or else that offer will be off the table forever.”
“There can be only one interpretation of these events: the (Department of Justice) and ICE are using their collective powers to force Mr. Abrego to choose between a guilty plea followed by relative safety, or rendition to Uganda, where his safety and liberty would be under threat,” Abrego’s attorneys wrote.
Attorneys for Abrego on Wednesday filed a motion to dismiss the criminal charges against him, calling the case a clear example of “selective and vindictive prosecution” by the Trump administration in legal filings last week.
The ultimatums offered by the Trump administration serve to underscore Abrego’s allegations that it is acting with vindictiveness towards him, their latest legal filing said.
“The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security “are obviously working in lockstep to coerce Mr. Abrego into accepting a guilty plea in his criminal case, holding over his head the prospect of possible indefinite detention — or worse — in a country halfway across the world,” the attorneys wrote. “It is difficult to imagine a path the government could have taken that would have better emphasized its vindictiveness.”
As part of the campaign against him, Abrego’s motion to dismiss said, Trump administration officials early on mounted a public campaign to distract from the erroneous deportation by smearing him. It started with Vice President JD Vance falsely claiming Abrego was an MS-13 gang member, and “other Executive Branch officials soon joined the Vice President’s effort to discredit Mr. Abrego, claiming publicly that he was violent, a gang member, and a terrorist,” the motion said.
Those attacks continued Friday when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem complained in a social media post about “this publicity hungry Maryland judge mandating this illegal alien who is a MS-13 gang member, human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator be allowed free.”
Abrego has never faced any of those charges in the U.S. Even though Noem also blasted a Maryland judge, Abrego’s release Friday was ordered by U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes in Tennessee, not U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland, who is overseeing his original deportation case.
Abrego is scheduled to appear at ICE office in Baltimore on Monday. According to the email from the agency, the 72-hour clock on his threatened deportation was paused over the weekend.
Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.
I was wondering what the deal was with the human smuggling, and here’s what I found:
The alleged conspiracy spanned nearly a decade and involved the domestic transport of thousands of noncitizens from Mexico and Central America, including some children, in exchange for thousands of dollars, according to the indictment.
Abrego Garcia is alleged to have participated in more than 100 such trips, according to the indictment. Among those allegedly transported were members of the Salvadoran gang MS-13, sources familiar with the investigation said.
Note that it says “domestic transport”. So his “crime” is driving people around inside the US, despite knowing that they’re illegal immigrants. It somehow seems like a thoughtcrime to me. And by the way, it seems like he was just transporting them so they could find work.
The Wikipedia article also says that the star witness against him is the guy who hired him to do it, and that the government offered that guy immunity in exchange for his testimony.
The crime is barely a crime, and the government offered immunity to the “ringleader” (for lack of a better term), in exchange for testimony against a driver. Exactly the opposite of what is normally done.
It seems like pure malice against a guy who’s just trying to work. Maybe he’s not perfect, but Trump and his flunkies are going way out of their way to ruin him.
I work in HR. It’s the equivalent of firing the restaurant employee for eating food untouched by a customer that was going to be thrown out. Meanwhile, the restaurant owner underpays his employees, lies on taxes, the manager is sleeping with the bartender, the suppliers are providing toxic food, the kitchen is an OSHA nightmare, the building has rats, it failed FDA and displaced affordable housing. But yeah, that is the dude who should be punished because he’s poor.
Gross.
Thank you for that amazing analogy.
I spent the time on it because if you want to get someone there is probably a law to do so. This pathologically lying admin claimed and their followers still seem to believe they’re going after the worst of the worst, when they’re going after the jaywalkers.
