Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who has become the face of President Trump's hard-line immigration agenda, is seeking asylum in the United States, his lawyers told a federal judge on Wednesday. US District Judge Paula Xinis ruled on Wednesday that Abrego Garcia, 30, can't be deported before at least Oct. 6, reports CNN, which is the date she set for a hearing in the case. She said she'll issue a ruling within 30 days of that hearing, and Abrego Garcia must remain on US soil until then. Xinis is one of the Maryland federal judges Trump unsuccessfully sued. Abrego Garcia is expected to remain in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody until then; he surrendered to them Monday in Baltimore.
The Salvadoran national's lawyers are fighting the deportation efforts, reports the AP, arguing he has the right to express fear of persecution and torture in Uganda, where the Trump administration has threatened to deport him. "Petitioner filed a motion to reopen before an immigration judge to seek asylum in the United States," his attorneys said in a court filing on Tuesday, per ABC News. Abrego Garcia has also told immigration authorities he'd prefer to be sent to Costa Rica if he must be removed from the US.
Abrego Garcia had been denied asylum in 2019 by a US immigration judge because he applied more than a year after he fled to the US. Although the immigration judge denied asylum for Abrego Garcia, the judge did issue an order shielding Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador, where he faced credible threats of violence from a local gang there that had terrorized him and his family. Abrego Garcia was granted a form of protection known as "withholding of removal," which prohibits removal to his native El Salvador but allows deportation to another country. Following the immigration judge's ruling, Abrego Garcia was released under federal supervision in 2019 and continued to live with his American wife and children in Maryland.
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