The Salvadoran man at the center of the most highly publicized case in President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation drive, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, is seeking to remain in the United States by renewing his bid for asylum.
Lawyers for Abrego filed a motion reasserting his asylum claim in immigration court Monday afternoon, hours after Abrego was taken into custody following a “check-in” with immigration officials he was ordered to attend.
Abrego’s attorneys revealed the new move publicly in a court filing Tuesday in a federal lawsuit he brought this week seeking to block the Trump administration from deporting him to Uganda, a country his lawyers say he has no ties to and where he could face new dangers.
Abrego’s lead immigration attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told reporters Monday that Abrego had initially agreed to be deported to Costa Rica. However, it now appears that he intends to fight any attempt to deport him from the U.S.
Abrego, who entered the U.S. illegally in 2011, has already been deported once this year: The Trump administration expelled him to El Salvador in March. Courts declared the deportation illegal and ordered the administration to seek his return. The administration brought him back to the U.S. in June and charged him with human smuggling, which Abrego denies.
In response to a query from POLITICO, Sandoval-Moshenberg said his client’s recent reentry into the U.S. entitles him to a new bid for asylum.
Abrego last sought asylum in 2019 during immigration-court proceedings, but a judge denied his claim, saying he had waited too long after entering the United States to file it.
“The only reason that Mr. Abrego Garcia was denied asylum was that he had failed to apply within one year of arriving in the United States as required,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “Now, Mr. Abrego Garcia has returned to the United States less than one year ago, and so is eligible to apply.”
During a video conference Wednesday in Abrego’s new lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said that she has no jurisdiction over the renewed asylum claim but that she intends to hold a hearing Oct. 6 on Abrego’s bid to block his deportation to Uganda.
“The asylum process is of no moment to me. I don’t have jurisdiction over that,” said Xinis, an Obama appointee.
However, the judge said recent comments from Trump and other top officials about Abrego are one reason she is intent on moving the proceedings quickly in the newly filed lawsuit.
“Those agency heads and all the way up to the president have been very comfortable telling the world that their intention is to deport Mr. Abrego to Uganda. They seem pretty firm on that,” the judge said. “That seems to me to indicate you all wish to proceed with great speed. … All indications point to me that we need to get this part of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case moving.”
Xinis said she intends to keep in place an order that forbids the government from moving Abrego outside the continental U.S. while his new suit is pending. She has also ordered that he be kept within 200 miles of her courthouse, which is located in Greenbelt, Maryland.