Kilmar Abrego Garcia is facing deportation to Uganda after surrendering to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore on Monday. He rejected the option to be sent to Costa Rica if he pleaded guilty to human smuggling charges.
Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported to a prison in El Salvador in March by the Trump administration as part of the president’s nationwide immigration crackdown.
After months of legal back-and-forth, including a Supreme Court ruling ordering the Trump administration to facilitate his return, he was flown back to the U.S. in June, where he was arrested on human smuggling charges in Tennessee. He pleaded not guilty and maintains that the charges are false.
The 30-year-old married father, despite a judge ruling that he had the right to be released until his trial, remained in jail at the request of his lawyers as they discussed whether they could stop federal prosecutors from detaining and deporting him for a second time before he could stand trial.
On Friday, he was released from prison — where he was being held while awaiting his human smuggling trial — and reunited with his family after five months apart.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia hugs his wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, inside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office on Aug. 25, 2025 in Baltimore.
Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images
Abrego Garcia was released from criminal custody on Friday after a month-long court-ordered delay expired. His lawyers had previously asked Tennessee-based U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw to dismiss the charges against him, arguing prosecutors improperly targeted him for filing a lawsuit challenging his wrongful deportation.
On Monday, Abrego Garcia surrendered to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during an immigration check-in that was part of his release agreement. He also filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, naming Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem as the lead defendant and challenging its plans to send him to Uganda.
JUST IN: Kilmar Abrego Garcia has filed a new federal lawsuit in Maryland.
Since it's a habeas corpus case, the petition isn't public now, but his lawyer said it challenges the Trump admin's scheme to send him to Uganda. https://t.co/l7PKbmU8nT pic.twitter.com/VcIKQyFb8Y
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) August 25, 2025
Kilmar Ábrego García returns home to family amid new threat from Trump administration
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers argue he’s being unduly reprimanded for mounting a legal challenge.
“There was no need to take him into ICE detention… The only reason they took him into detention was to punish him” for using his constitutional right to speak up and fight proceedings,” Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, said Monday morning to NBC News.
While post-release check-ins are typical, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said to NBC News that they expected him to be detained by ICE during the meeting.
According to Sandoval-Moshenberg, a notice said Monday’s meeting would be for an interview.
“Clearly that was false,” he said, adding that the Trump administration was acting illegally to make an example of Abrego Garcia.
“The fact that they’re holding Costa Rica as a carrot and using Uganda as a stick to try to coerce him to plead guilty to a crime is such clear evidence that they’re weaponizing the immigration system in a matter that is completely unconstitutional, and specifically weaponizing the decision of which country they send him to.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia (C) and his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura (centre right) enter a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office on Aug. 25, 2025 in Baltimore.
Andrew Harnik / Getty Images
The Trump administration initially deported Abrego Garcia in March, arguing without evidence that he is a dangerous MS-13 gang member. In doing so, it defied a 2019 protection order blocking him from deportation to his native El Salvador over threats of gang persecution.