Kilmar Abrego Garcia Detained by ICE, Faces Re-Deportation

By Matt Cohen

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – AUGUST 25: Kilmar Abrego Garcia and his wife Jennifer Vasquez Sura enter a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office on August 25, 2025 in Baltimore, Maryland. The U.S. Government is threatening to deport Garcia, a Maryland construction worker from El Salvador, to Uganda after he rejected a plea deal to be charged with Human Smuggling and deported to Costa Rica. Earlier this year Garcia was wrongfully deported to a notorious anti-terrorism prison CECOT in El Salvador. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Update: District Court Judge Paula Xinis has blocked Abrego Garcia’s immediate deportation to Uganda. Per oral order, Abrego Garcia will remain detained in an ICE facility in Virginia until an evidentiary hearing Friday.

Days after being freed from custody, Kilmar Abrego Garcia — the Maryland man who was wrongly removed from the U.S. and imprisoned in El Salvador earlier this year — has once again been detained by ICE and faces deportation. 

Abrego Garcia was detained early Monday morning shortly after arriving at a required check-in at ICE’s Baltimore field office. Hours after Abrego Garcia’s release Friday, ICE gave his lawyers a court mandated 72 hour-notice of their intention to deport him to Uganda, upon arrival to his required check-in Monday. Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, reportedly filed a federal lawsuit immediately after his client was re-detained, hoping to prevent Abrego Garcia from being deported to another country again. 

“I expect there’s going to be a status conference very promptly, and we’re going to ask for an interim order that he not be deported, pending his due process rights to contest deportation to any particular country,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.

Abrego Garcia returned home to Maryland early Saturday morning after being imprisoned in El Salvador for over two months, when he was removed from the U.S. through an “administrative error” by the Trump administration. Abrego Garcia’s case became a flashpoint in the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdown, wherein tens of thousands of legal and illegal immigrants have been deported — many without the right of due process. 

Abrego Garcia was sent back to the U.S. from El Salvador in June to face criminal charges for alleged immigrant smuggling. A federal judge ruled last month that Abrego Garcia must be returned to Maryland from Tennessee on an order of supervision and barred the Trump administration from immediately taking him into custody upon release. Abrego Garcia’s release this weekend came after weeks of deliberation between his lawyers, the federal government and the courts over what would happen to him if he was released pending trial.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said Monday that ICE had begun processing Abrego Garcia’s deportation to Uganda — where his lawyers said he fears being tortured and being deported from the East African country back to El Salvador. 

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers last week filed a motion to dismiss the charges of immigrant smuggling, alleging that the Department of Justice is engaging in a vindictive prosecution against Abrego Garcia and seeking to penalize him for asserting his rights. The U.S. Department of Justice reportedly offered Abrego Garcia a plea deal that would instead deport him to Costa Rica, which he declined.

“The fact that they’re holding Costa Rica as a carrot and using Uganda as a stick to coerce him is such clear evidence that they’re weaponizing the immigration system in a manner that is completely unconstitutional,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.