The Trump administration may try to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Uganda, according to a senior Department of Homeland Security official and a notice sent by government officials obtained by CBS News.
Hours after Abrego Garcia — who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador earlier this year — was released from pre-trial detention in Tennessee on Friday, his attorneys were sent a court-required notice of his potential deportation to Uganda, the official said.
The notice said he may be deported to the East African country “no earlier than 72 hours from now,” not including weekends.
Earlier in the week, CBS News was first to report that Uganda had agreed to a U.S. request to accept deportees who are not its citizens, becoming the latest “third country” to strike a deportation agreement with the second Trump administration.
A native of El Salvador, Abrego Garcia was held in a notorious Salvadoran prison for months, before being returned to the U.S. and jailed while awaiting trial on federal human smuggling charges. A judge ruled that he should be released from detention ahead of a trial set for January.
The Trump administration has indicated for months that if he’s let out of jail, Immigration and Customs Enforcement could detain him and seek his removal from the U.S. yet again.
In 2019, an immigration judge ruled that Abrego Garcia cannot be deported to El Salvador because he feared persecution by local gangs in the Central American country. The Trump administration said he was deported there anyway due to an “administrative error.”
Still, the government could legally seek Abrego Garcia’s deportation to Uganda or another “third country” other than El Salvador — a practice the Trump administration has increasingly used for undocumented immigrants in recent months.
Abrego Garcia plans to return to Maryland, where he lived with his family prior to his March deportation. Maryland-based U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ruled last month that the government must give him 72 hours’ notice if it plans to initiate deportation proceedings. But she didn’t prohibit the government from seeking his removal, writing that immigration agents “may take whatever action is available to them under the law.”
CBS News has reached out to DHS and Abrego Garcia’s attorneys for comment.
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