Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s lawyers say he wants to seek asylum in the United States
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who has become the face of President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda, wants to seek asylum in the United States, his lawyers told a federal judge Wednesday.
Abrego Garcia, 30, was detained Monday in Baltimore by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement after leaving a Tennessee jail on Friday. Administration officials have said he’s part of the dangerous MS-13 gang, an allegation Abrego Garcia denies.
The Salvadoran national’s lawyers are fighting the deportation efforts in court, arguing he has the right to express fear of persecution and torture in Uganda. Abrego Garcia has also told immigration authorities he would prefer to be sent to Costa Rica if he must be removed from the U.S.
He had been denied asylum in 2019 by a U.S. immigration judge because he applied for asylum more than a year after he fled to the U.S. from El Salvador. But the judge did issue an order shielding him from deportation to El Salvador because he faced credible threats of violence from a gang that had terrorized him and his family.
