Kilmar Abrego Garcia seeks asylum in US to avoid deportation to Uganda

Lawyers for Salvadoran national, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, on Wednesday told a federal judge he wants to seek asylum in the US.

The 30-year-old has come to encapsulate much of President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda.

Abrego Garcia gained international attention after he was wrongly deported to a notorious jail in El Salvador in March.

Facing a court order, the administration brought him back months later and promptly detained him on human smuggling charges.

It also claimed he is a member of the dangerous MS-13 gang, an allegation Abrego Garcia denies.

Now it wants to deport him to Uganda, but his lawyers argue that he has the right to express fear of persecution and torture there.

They say sending him to Uganda would be punishment for successfully fighting his deportation, refusing to plead guilty to the charges, and seeking release from a Tennessee jail.

Abrego Garcia has also told immigration authorities he would prefer to be sent to Costa Rica if he must be removed from the US.

He entered the US illegally as a teenager in 2011 after fleeing gang violence and is married to a US citizens with whom he has children.

In 2019, an immigration judge denied his request for asylum because he applied more than a year after he had arrived in the country.

But he was granted protection against deportation to El Salvador because he likely faced credible threats of violence from a local gang.

The US District judge Paula Xinis judge has scheduled a hearing on his case for 6 October and says he cannot be deported before then.

Ugandan critics claim Kampala has made a deal with the US to accept deportees in exchange for easing political pressure on its long-time president.