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Kilmer Abrego Garcia was not an activist and chose not to get caught up in a case that has become one of the Trump administration’s most contentious immigration issues, his lawyer told The Associated Press on Monday.
But as he is experiencing a few days with his family he was accidentally sent El Salvador After being jailed in March, his lawyer said he was still hoping for a fair resolution to his case.
“He’s been through a lot, and he’s still fighting,” his lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moschenberg, said during an interview with the AP after Abrego Garcia’s court-ordered release from custody last week. “What he can fight for is limited by law and great power United States of America Government, but he is still fighting.”
Abrego García’s mistaken deportation to El Salvador helped solidify opposition to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies. Despite having no criminal record, he was held there in a notoriously brutal prison.
US authorities claimed Abrego García was a member of the MS-13 gang, a charge he denies and for which he was not charged. He was later charged with human trafficking, charges his lawyers have described as absurd and vindictive.
The Trump administration made efforts to bring him back to the US but ultimately relented. Since then, his case has been embroiled in legal hoops and tussles, with Salvadoran citizen Abrego García released from detention once since March – and that time for just a weekend – while the government has filed trafficking charges against him and announced plans to deport him to several African countries.
Then last week, a federal district court judge in Maryland ordered her released and barred the government from detaining her again until a hearing in her case, possibly as early as this week, Sandoval-Moschenberg said.
The Department of Homeland Security last week criticized the decision to release the judge and vowed to appeal, calling the decision “naked judicial activism” by a judge appointed during the Obama administration.
Asylum, Green Card or Costa Rica
Sandoval-Moschenberg said Abrego Garcia has several paths forward. He said he felt his client had a strong case for asylum. His original asylum claim was rejected in 2019 because he applied after the one-year deadline. But Sandoval-Moschenberg argued that the government essentially reset the situation by removing him from El Salvador and then bringing him back.
And Sandoval-Moschenberg said that after Abrego García’s alleged mistreatment in El Salvador this year, she thought he would have a “solid” asylum case. But, citing the ups and downs of his case and how he has become a symbol of the administration’s pursuit of immigrants, he is worried about his chances of getting a fair hearing in immigration court.
“I think they’ve already shown that they’re willing to stack the deck,” Sandoval-Moschenberg said.
Abrego Garcia can also apply for a green card because he is married to a US citizen. But that would require getting a waiver from the government, Sandoval-Moschenberg said, and the attorney doubts that waiver will be granted.
Or he can continue to demand removal costa ricaA country that has offered to allow them to enter as refugees and live and work legally, Sandoval-Moschenberg said. And he will not be returned to El Salvador, the lawyer said.
But he also believes the government will continue to fight against that option.
“They’re focused on beating him. They’re focused on punishing him. They’re focused on making him miserable. I think Costa Rica is not that miserable,” he said.
What the government will do is being ascertained
Sandoval-Moschenberg said she spent some time over the weekend with Abrego García and his family talking about the government’s next steps and what Abrego García wants for his future.
“There are a lot of different ways this could go. And a lot of it depends on how much dirty the government is willing to play,” he said.
Sandoval-Moschenberg said he thought that if the government was willing to remove him to Costa Rica, his clients would accept it, although he stressed that the decision was up to them.
He said Abrego García and his legal team would not consider that justice – for him it would mean staying with his family in the US, but Sandoval-Moschenberg said that given what he has faced and “the fact that they are apparently willing to use infinite prosecutorial resources against him, deportation to Costa Rica is an acceptable outcome for him.”
Sandoval-Moschenberg also emphasized that there is one place Abrego García doesn’t want to go.
“His number one priority is not to go back to CECOT,” Sandoval-Moschenberg said, referring to the prison in El Salvador where his client was held. Sandoval-Moschenberg said Abrego García was tortured there, a claim El Salvador officials have denied and the AP could not independently verify.
“His number one priority is to avoid being sent back to that prison.”
‘He’s a random guy’
Sandoval-Moschenberg said she had no idea why the government had chosen Abrego García’s case to fight tooth and nail.
“This is not a case where he’s an activist, like an immigrant rights activist, or, you know, he’s been persecuted by the government for pro-Palestine speech or anything like that,” the lawyer said. “He’s a random guy.”
The whole process of exile, imprisonment and return “has been a really kind of bizarre, out of the world experience for him,” Sandoval-Moschenberg said.
The judge last Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from detaining Abrego Garcia until his next court hearing.
Although no date has been set, it could happen as soon as this week, Sandoval-Moschenberg said, noting the severity of the case that Abrego García and his family have struggled with.
“The ground has slipped from under their feet, it’s been earthquakes one after another,” he said.