Abrego Garcia Fights ICE's New Plan: Liberia

The US government now plans to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia and could do so as soon as Oct. 31, according to a court filing on Friday. The Salvadoran national's case has become a magnet for opposition to President Trump's immigration policies since he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in violation of a settlement agreement. He was returned to the US in June after the US Supreme Court said the administration had to work to bring him back. He cannot be redeported to El Salvador, per the AP; ICE instead has been seeking to deport him to an African country.

A federal judge in Maryland has previously barred his immediate deportation. Abrego Garcia's lawsuit there claims the Trump administration is illegally using the deportation process to punish him for the embarrassment of his earlier mistaken deportation. A Friday court filing from the Department of Homeland Security notes that "Liberia is a thriving democracy and one of the United States's closest partners on the African continent." Its national language is English; its constitution "provides robust protections for human rights;" and Liberia is "committed to the humane treatment of refugees," the filing reads. It concludes that Abrego Garcia could be deported by the end of the month.

"After failed attempts with Uganda, Eswatini, and Ghana," a statement from attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg reads, ICE now seeks to deport Abrego Garcia to "a country with which he has no connection, thousands of miles from his family and home in Maryland." The statement adds that Costa Rica is ready to accept him as a refugee, "yet the government has chosen a course calculated to inflict maximum hardship." Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the US illegally as a teenager. He faces criminal charges in federal court in Tennessee, where he has pleaded not guilty to human smuggling, a prosecution he says is vindictive. A US immigration judge this month denied a bid for asylum, a decision that can be appealed.