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WASHINGTON – The Trump administration on September 5 announced plans to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the small African nation of Eswatini. This decision comes after a legal battle in which Abrego’s arrest and fight to remain in the U.S. have served as a focal point for the administration’s immigration crackdown.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security official informed Abrego’s lawyers that Eswatini, rather than Uganda, is now his designated country of removal. This change was made because Abrego has expressed fears of persecution or torture in Uganda. The official stated, “That claim of fear is hard to take seriously, especially given that you have claimed (through your attorneys) that you fear persecution or torture in at least 22 different countries … Nonetheless, we hereby notify you that your new country of removal is Eswatini, Africa.”
Abrego, originally from El Salvador and currently detained in Virginia, has no ties to Eswatini, a landlocked country bordering South Africa. He was initially arrested in Maryland with his wife, their child, and two of her children— all American citizens.
The Trump administration’s push to send Abrego to Eswatini is part of a saga that began in March when U.S. authorities accused him of being a gang member and sent him to an El Salvadoran prison despite a U.S. judge’s order prohibiting his deportation to his native country. In June, he was brought back to face charges related to transporting undocumented migrants living in the U.S.
Abrego’s lawyers argue that the administration is attempting to coerce him into pleading guilty. According to court filings, at one point, they offered to deport him to Costa Rica if he agreed to plead guilty and threatened to send him to Uganda otherwise. The U.S. had previously dispatched a deportation flight to Eswatini in July, which Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokeswoman, described as carrying “individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.”
Reporting by Ted Hesson and Jan Wolfe in Washington; editing by Tom Hogue
