Kilmar Abrego García, who was erroneously deported in March before being taken back to the United States to face new criminal charges, was taken in immigration custody after consulting with the application of immigration and customs in his office in Baltimore on Monday morning, said his lawyer.
Abrego García was arrested as soon as he entered the ICE office, said lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg.
“We asked the ICE officer what was the reason for his detention, the ICE officer did not respond,” said Sandoval-Moshenberg, and added that ICE officers would not tell which detention center would take his client.
“We asked the ICE officer for a copy of any paperwork that has been served today, the ICE officer would not even give us that paperwork,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
Less than 24 hours after being released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday, ICE notified Abrego García’s lawyers that he could be deported to Uganda and ordered him to inform his office in Maryland.
ICE’s notification occurred after Abrego García rejected a guilt agreement to be deported to Costa Rica in exchange for declaring himself guilty of human smuggling charges and remaining in jail, according to a judicial presentation of his lawyers.
In the presentation, Abrego García’s lawyers accused the Federal Government of trying to force their client to accept a statement of guilt or deportation to East Africa.
Kilmar Abrego García, attends an event with the followers, since it appears for a Check-in in the Ice Baltimore field office three days after his release of criminal custody in Tennessee, in Baltimore, Maryland, on August 25, 2025.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
Abrego García, a Salvadoran native, was deported in March to the mega prison of Cecot of El Salvador, despite a 2019 court order that prohibits his deportation to that country due to the fear of persecution, after the Trump administration said he was a member of the MS-13 criminal gang, that his family and lawyers indicate.
He was taken back to the United States in June to face positions in Tennessee of supposedly transporting undocumented migrants within the United States while living in Maryland. He declared himself innocent.
In July, the United States District Judge, Paula Xinis, ordered that, if released while waiting for the trial, Abrego García is placed under ice supervision in Maryland, where he lived with his wife and children before being mistakenly deported in March, “to” provide the type of effective relief to which an incorrect alien has the right to return. “
Xinis also said that if the government intends to deport Abrego García to a third country, it must provide a 72 -hour notice.
The order allowed the Trump administration to initiate “legal immigration procedures” when Abrego García returned to Maryland. Immigration procedures may or may not include “legal arrest, detention and eventual elimination,” Xinis said in July.
In a habit demand filed on Monday morning, Abrego García’s lawyers accused the federal government of stopping it without giving him the right to be heard “for his expressed fear of persecution and torture” in case he is deported to Uganda.
“The respondents are trying to eliminate the petitioner to Uganda, a process that they know will trigger long legal procedures, instead of Costa Rica, the country for the removal designated by the petitioner who offered resettlement, to punish him for his constitutionally protected activity,” prosecutors said in the archive.
The lawyers claim that the government is trying to deport Abrego García to Uganda instead of Costa Rica for “refusing to declare themselves guilty in their criminal procedures” in Tennessee.
“In doing so, respondents know and intend that the petitioner be arrested for ICE for a long period of time, despite the fact that a removal of Costa Rica could be done with little or no ice arrest, and respondents seek to use ice arrest to punish the petitioner,” says the file.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Maryland district, shortly after Abrego García was arrested for ICE, requests that the court prevent the Government from arresting Abrego García “to more than 200 miles” of the Palace of Justice in Baltimore.
The lawyers are also asking the court to prevent the government from looking at Abrego García to Uganda without trying to first take it to Costa Rica.
They also ask the court to order the government to allow Abrego García to have an interview of “reasonable fear” before his client is deported to Uganda.
