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Donald Trump’s administration has repeatedly threatened Kilmer Abrego Garcia at center to be deported to at least five different countries amid ongoing legal battle to remove Salvadoran immigrant The President’s anti-immigration agenda.
Now, the government has reached out to a new country it can reach by October 31: Liberia.
The Justice Department said Friday the government was making “final necessary arrangements” to remove him to the West African country Administration Clems agrees to accept him at the beginning of Halloween.
Abrego Garcia’s legal team told Independent The move is “punitive, cruel and unconstitutional”.
Abrego García was accidentally deported to his native El Salvador in March, sparking a high-profile legal battle to bring him back to the US. After federal judges and the Supreme Court ordered the government to overturn his “illegal” expulsion, the Trump administration brought him back in June — but only so he could face new charges. Criminal charges filed against him accusing him of smuggling immigrants across the countryHe has pleaded not guilty.
Abrego García spent in El Salvador several weeks inside a cruel prisonWhere he says he suffered “severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation, inadequate nutrition and psychological torture”.
Upon returning to the US, he reunited with his family in Maryland for a weekend after being briefly released from federal custody in the criminal case – but ultimately returned to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement as the Trump administration tries so far unsuccessfully to deport him again.
The administration had previously outlined a plan to deport him to Costa Rica — but only if he agreed to plead guilty. human trafficking chargesIf Abrego García did not do so, he would be deported to Uganda, the government said.
Then, Trump officials suggested he could be deported back to his home country of El Salvador if he successfully reopened his asylum case in the US. The judge overseeing his immigration case has rejected that effort.
Last month, ICE officials said he would be flown to Eswatini, a small African country at the center of the administration’s efforts. Deport immigrants to countries where they have no citizenship, family, or other ties.
An email from an ICE official to Abrego Garcia’s legal team said the administration singled out Eswatini because he said he feared persecution and torture in other countries. Homeland Security also said he would be deported to Ghana, a notice that officials later acknowledged was “premature”.
The governments of Ghana, Eswatini and Uganda have refused to accept them.
Earlier this month, Abrego García’s legal team said he was prepared to leave the country for Costa Rica, a move that appears to have been rescinded by the Trump administration.
“Although the petitioner has identified more than [20] “Liberia is not on the list of countries from which they fear they would subject them to torture or torture if they were removed,” government lawyers wrote Friday.
He argued that “Liberia is a thriving democracy and one of the United States’ closest partners on the African continent,” with “strong protections for human rights” and “protection for refugees and vulnerable populations.”
Liberia’s Foreign Minister Sarah Bayesolo Nyanti met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week, according to a press release from the country’s Foreign Ministry.
“After dealing with Uganda, Eswatini and Ghana, ICE now wants to deport our client Kilmer Abrego Garcia to Liberia – a country with which he has no ties, thousands of miles away from his family and home in Maryland,” said his attorney Simon Sandoval-Moschenberg. Independent.
“Costa Rica has agreed to accept him as a refugee and this remains a viable and legitimate option,” he said. “Instead, the government has chosen another path that appears designed to cause maximum hardship. Their actions are punitive, cruel, and unconstitutional.”
Attorneys are scheduled to return to court on Nov. 3 to discuss Abrego Garcia’s criminal case and immigration case.