Federal judge temporarily bars Abrego Garcia from deportation to Uganda
A federal judge in Maryland blocked the Trump administration on Monday from immediately deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda after he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials hours earlier, delivering a temporary blow to the government's efforts to remove the Salvadorian migrant at the center of a months-long court fight.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia's attorney, said Monday that he filed the emergency motion after his client was taken into immigration custody at the ICE Field Office in Baltimore, after he appeared there as a condition of his pretrial release from criminal custody.
The new filing asks a judge to block Abrego Garcia's removal from the U.S. until his immigration case can play out via the proper channels, ensuring due process protections — including the right to a reasonable fear interview before being removed to a third country.
Judge Paula Xinis said that she planned to move quickly in weighing the emergency request, telling both Justice Department lawyers and attorneys for Abrego Garcia to confer privately to hash out a proposed briefing schedule, with an eye towards Friday as a possible date for an evidentiary hearing. The judge said she would hold off on any decisions until after the hearing.
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Xinis noted at the outset that she believed an extension of her current temporary restraining order might be "necessary," in light of the administration's stated plans to deport Abrego Garcia to Uganda, even as she acknowledged that the information before her was preliminary.
She also cited the daylight between the plea offer offered to Abrego Garcia late last week — which would allow him to be sent to Costa Rica as a free individual in exchange for pleading guilty to criminal charges against him — and the lack of stated assurances from Uganda, the East African nation agreed to accept migrants deported from the U.S. just days earlier.
She noted there is not a known proffer from Uganda detailing what protections Abreo Garcia would have in the country, including the ability to travel freely throughout its borders, compared to what Costa Rica provided, which included assurances that he would live in the country freely, and would have residency papers or refugee status.
Crucially, Uganda has not provided any known assurances that Abrego Garcia would not be befouled, or sent back to El Salvador, after being deported to the country.
"There's just nothing right now on the record in that regard," Xinis said, noting that the silence from Uganda "is certainly taken in contrast" as to what Costa Rica has offered.
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Though Xinis stressed the information before her was preliminary, and that the Trump administration "can certainly right the ship" by providing evidence to the contrary, she said, "the contrast is significant," at least for now.
Before adjourning the court, she also ordered the Trump administration to keep Abrego Garcia in the same ICE detention center in Virginia, where he was moved after his arrest on Monday, after his attorneys cited concerns ICE would remove him again tonight.
Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign did not immediately rule out that possibility, prompting her to order him to be kept there.
She also reiterated, several times, that the government must comply with the court.
"Your clients are absolutely forbidden at this juncture to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the continental United States," she noted pointedly to Ensign, who agreed.
"I'm going to take it from you, as an officer of the court, and on behalf of your clients, that there is the fullest intent to abide by those orders," Xinis said, before following up again. "Is that accurate?"
"That is accurate, Your Honor," Ensign said.