So-called ‘Maryland man’ Kilmar Abrego Garcia now faces deportation to the tiny African nation Eswatini, after the Salvadoran migrant’s lawyers said he fears persecution in 22 other countries.
An ICE removal notice shared with Fox News notified Abrego Garcia, 29, that his ‘new country of removal’ will be Eswatini, a landlocked country of just over a million people that shares borders with South Africa and Mozambique.
The notice said Abrego Garcia’s fears of persecution are ‘hard to take seriously’ and listed Uganda, El Salvador and twenty Latin American countries as the places he refused to be deported to.
The Department of Homeland Security mocked Abrego Garcia further, posting the ICE notice on its official X account and writing: ‘Homie is afraid of the entire western hemisphere’.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys quickly responded to ICE by saying that Eswatini also wasn’t an acceptable country for him to be sent to.
‘Third-country nationals previously removed from the United States to Eswatini have all been detained in extremely harsh and tortuous conditions; that country has a well-documented record of human rights violations,’ his lawyers said in an email to ICE obtained by ABC News.
‘To our knowledge, Eswatini has offered no guarantees that it will not promptly deport Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador where he already experienced torture and will experience torture again,’ the email continued.
The State Department has a travel advisory for Eswatini warning Americans that crime is common there, especially ‘sporadic armed robberies and carjackings’.
The Trump administration wants to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Eswatini, a tiny nation in southern Africa
Abrego Garcia is seen hugging his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura at the ICE office in Baltimore
Eswatini is a landlocked country of just over a million people that borders South Africa and Mozambique (Pictured: King Mswati III at the 2024 Umhlanga Reed Dance ceremony)
The nation was formerly known as Swaziland, but King Mswati III changed the name to Eswatini in 2018 to more closely resemble its ancient name and avoid confusion with Switzerland.
The White House has previously slammed characterizations of the Abrego Garcia by Democrats and the media that portrayed him as an American dad.
‘Abrego Garcia was never an innocent “Maryland Man”– Abrego Garcia is an illegal alien terrorist, gang member, and human trafficker who has spent his entire life abusing innocent people, especially women and the most vulnerable,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News in June.
The latest development in Abrego Garcia’s case comes after lawyers for the Trump administration said in court filing Thursday that it would remove him back to El Salvador if a judge reopens his immigration case.
Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland with his wife and children when he was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT terrorism prison, something Department of Justice lawyers later acknowledged was a mistake.
That was because there was a 2019 court order barring his deportation to El Salvador because he feared persecution there.
He was returned to the United States in June and shortly after, the DOJ unveiled criminal charges against him, alleging he was smuggling illegal migrants over the border.
Prior to that, Tennessee authorities released police body camera footage that appeared to show Abrego Garcia getting pulled over with eight other men in the car on November 30, 2022.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed the media for calling Abrego Garcia was an innocent ‘Maryland Man’
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported along with thousands of other illegal immigrants in March as part of Trump’s crackdown on border security
The nation was formerly known as Swaziland, but King Mswati III changed the name to Eswatini in 2018 to avoid confusion with Switzerland.
The Trump administration has long claimed that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang.
And DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has frequently referred to him as a ‘human trafficker, serial domestic abuser and child predator’.
Abrego Garcia has denied these accusations and has also pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
He was arrested again on August 25 after being released from custody several days prior.
Then, the government stated its intention to deport him to Uganda, which has triggered this court battle between DOJ lawyers and Abrego Garcia’s attorneys over where to send him.
He is currently in an immigration detention center in Virginia after US District Judge Paula Xinis temporarily blocked his deportation to Uganda.
‘Your clients are absolutely forbidden at this juncture to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the continental United States,’ Judge Xinis told government attorneys on August 25.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers are fighting to reopen his immigration case so he can apply for asylum in the US.
In filings, the government has stated that Abrego Garcia is a member of a foreign terrorist organization, which makes him ineligible to seek asylum in the US.
