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The Trump administration might try to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to
Uganda in the coming days, according to a notice sent by a Department of Homeland Security official to his lawyers on Friday.

The notice, made public in a court filing in Abrego Garcia’s human
smuggling criminal case in Tennessee, came minutes after he was released
from criminal custody pending his trial on the federal charges, and
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers accused the government of using the notice to
try to “coerce” Abergo Garcia to accept a plea deal in his case.

“Let this email serve as notice that DHS may remove your client, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to Uganda no earlier than 72 hours from now
(absent weekends),” the notice read in part.

Administration officials have hinted in the past at the possibility that
Abrego Garcia, who was unlawfully deported to El Salvador earlier this
year before being returned to the US in June to face the charges, may be deported to a third country. But until Friday, it wasn’t clear whether
they would let his trial conclude before they initiated any removal proceedings.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney for Abrego Garcia, told CNN in a statement the move to send the Salvadoran national to Uganda was “retaliation” by the government.

“The government’s decision to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda makes
it painfully clear that they are using the immigration system to punish
him for exercising his constitutional rights,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “There is a perfectly reasonable option available, Costa Rica, where he
his family can visit him easily, but instead they are attempting to send
him halfway across the world, to a country with documented human rights
abuses and where he does not even speak the language. This is not
justice; it is retaliation.”

Under a ruling issued last month by US District Judge Paula Xinis, who
had ordered the administration to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return from a mega-prison in El Salvador, officials are required to give him
and his lawyers a heads up of removal plans at least 72 business hours
before they intend to carry out the deportation to a third country.

That requirement is meant to give him time to raise a claim that he may
face torture or persecution in the third country identified by the
government.

The filing submitted by Abrego Garcia’s lawyers Saturday morning to the federal judge overseeing his criminal case also said that earlier this
week, the government tried to cut a deal with him in which he would
plead guilty to the two federal charges and, after serving any
court-imposed sentence, be deported to Costa Rica.

The Central American country would accept him as a refugee or give him
some form of legal status, according to a letter sent from its
government to a State Department official at the US embassy in Costa
Rica.

That offer was renewed Friday evening, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said in court papers. They told the judge that their client now has until Monday morning “to accept a plea in exchange for deportation to Costa Rica, or
else that offer will be off the table forever.”

The offers, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers argued, are evidence of what they described as the government’s effort to punish Abrego Garcia for
challenging his wrongful deportation earlier this year. They told the
judge, Waverly Crenshaw, that the developments buttress their request
for him to throw the case out on the grounds that Abrego Garcia is the
subject of “vindictive and selective prosecution.”

“There can be only one interpretation of these events: the DOJ, DHS, and
ICE are using their collective powers to force Mr. Abrego to choose
between a guilty plea followed by relative safety, or rendition to
Uganda, where his safety and liberty would be under threat,” the
attorneys wrote.

“It is difficult to imagine a path the government could have taken that
would have better emphasized its vindictiveness,” they continued. “This case should be dismissed.”

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/23/politics/kilmar-abrego-garcia-uganda-deport

--
Screw the trial. He's guilty of something. He should be taken out and
shot.

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