BALTIMORE: A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked the deportation to Uganda of a Salvadoran man at the center of a row over US President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported to El Salvador in March and then sent back to the United States, was arrested in Baltimore on Monday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on X.
Abrego Garcia, 30, who was released last week from a jail in Tennessee, where he is facing human smuggling charges, and allowed to go home to Maryland pending trial, “will be processed for removal to Uganda,” the Department of Homeland Security said.
Lawyers for Abrego Garcia immediately filed a lawsuit contesting his deportation and District Judge Paula Xinis temporarily blocked his removal from the country while she holds further hearings on his case.
Abrego Garcia was required to check in with ICE in Baltimore on Monday as one of the conditions of his release.
Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, told a crowd of supporters outside the ICE field office that his client was immediately taken into custody when he turned up for the appointment.
“Shame, shame,” chanted the protesters, who were holding signs reading “Free Kilmar” and “Remove Trump.”
The attempt to deport Abrego Garcia to Uganda adds a new twist to a saga that became a test case for Trump’s sprawling crackdown on illegal immigration — and, critics say, his trampling of the law.
Abrego Garcia had been living in the United States under protected legal status since 2019, when a judge ruled he should not be deported because he could be harmed in his home country.
Then he became one of more than 200 people sent to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison in March as part of Trump’s crackdown on undocumented migrants.
But Justice Department lawyers admitted that the Salvadoran had been wrongly deported due to an “administrative error.”
He was returned to US soil only to be detained again in Tennessee on human smuggling charges.
Abrego Garcia denies any wrongdoing, while the Trump administration alleges he is a violent MS-13 gang member involved in smuggling of other undocumented migrants.
On Thursday, when it became clear that Abrego Garcia would be released the following day, government officials made him a plea offer: remain in custody, plead guilty to human smuggling and be deported to Costa Rica.
He declined the offer.
“That they’re holding Costa Rica as a carrot and using Uganda as a stick to try to coerce him to plead guilty to a crime is such clear evidence that they’re weaponizing the immigration system in a manner that is completely unconstitutional,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said.
The case has become emblematic of Trump’s crackdown on illegal migration.
Right-wing supporters praise the Republican president’s toughness, but legal scholars and human rights advocates have blasted what they say is a haphazard rush to deport people without even a court hearing, in violation of basic US law.
US judge temporarily blocks deportation of Salvadoran man in immigration row
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US judge temporarily blocks deportation of Salvadoran man in immigration row
- Lawyers for Abrego Garcia immediately filed a lawsuit contesting his deportation and District Judge Paula Xinis temporarily blocked his removal from the country
- Attempt to deport Abrego Garcia to Uganda adds a new twist to a saga that became a test case for Trump’s sprawling crackdown on illegal immigration
Bangladesh begins exhuming mass grave from 2024 uprising
- The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed in crackdowns as Hasina attempted to cling to power — deaths that formed part of her conviction last month for crimes against humanity
DHAKA: Bangladeshi police began exhuming on Sunday a mass grave believed to contain around 114 unidentified victims of a mass uprising that toppled autocratic former prime minister Sheikh Hasina last year.
The UN-supported effort is being advised by Argentine forensic anthropologist Luis Fondebrider, who has led recovery and identification missions at mass graves worldwide for decades.
The bodies were buried at the Rayerbazar Graveyard in Dhaka by the volunteer group Anjuman Mufidul Islam, which said it handled 80 unclaimed bodies in July and another 34 in August 2024 — all people reported to have been killed during weeks of deadly protests.
The United Nations says up to 1,400 people were killed in crackdowns as Hasina attempted to cling to power — deaths that formed part of her conviction last month for crimes against humanity.
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) chief Md Sibgat Ullah said investigators believed the mass grave held roughly 114 bodies, but the exact number would only be known once exhumations were complete.
“We can only confirm once we dig the graves and exhume the bodies,” Ullah told reporters.
- ‘Searched for him’ -
Among those hoping for answers is Mohammed Nabil, who is searching for the remains of his brother Sohel Rana, 28, who vanished in July 2024.
“We searched for him everywhere,” Nabil told AFP.
He said his family first suspected Rana’s death after seeing a Facebook video, then recognized his clothing — a blue T-shirt and black trousers — in a photograph taken by burial volunteers.
Exhumed bodies will be given post-mortem examinations and DNA testing. The process is expected to take several weeks to complete.
“It’s been more than a year, so it won’t be possible to extract DNA from the soft tissues,” senior police officer Abu Taleb told AFP. “Working with bones would be more time-consuming.”
Forensic experts from four Dhaka medical colleges are part of the team, with Fondebrider brought in to offer support as part of an agreement with the UN rights body the OHCHR.
“The process is complex and unique,” Fondebrider told reporters. “We will guarantee that international standards will be followed.”
Fondebrider previously headed the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, founded in 1984 to investigate the tens of thousands who disappeared during Argentina’s former military dictatorship.
Authorities say the exhumed bodies will be reburied in accordance with religious rites and their families’ wishes.
Hasina, convicted in absentia last month and sentenced to death, remains in self-imposed exile in India.
