Donald Trump’s administration said Thursday that it might try to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador again if he successfully opens an asylum case, which experts say seems promising.
Having already been illegally sent by the Trump administration to a Salvadoran prison where he said he was tortured, and now facing the possibility of being sent to Uganda, Abrego Garcia’s legal victories seem to only make the Trump administration more determined to make an example out of him as part of its cruel immigration policies. He has never been convicted of a crime.
Abrego Garcia filed a motion for an asylum claim in immigration court last week shortly after he was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement once again. Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, Abrego Garcia’s lawyer, told Politico that because he recently reentered the U.S., he can open a new bid for asylum.
Should he succeed, the Trump administration said that the Department of Homeland Security would then seek to send Abrego Garcia back to El Salvador.
“Should the immigration court grant the respondent’s motion to reopen, DHS will pursue the respondent’s removal to El Salvador,” the Trump administration wrote in its filing. The news was first reported by The New York Times on Friday.
Abrego Garcia previously sought asylum in 2019, but was denied because he had been in the country for more than a year — he had come to the U.S. in 2011. That time around, the immigration judge did shield him from deportation because he faced gang violence in El Salvador, giving him relief called “withholding of removal.”
“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.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said on X that Abrego Garcia has a strong claim for asylum.
“Mr. Abrego Garcia has plausibly alleged that he was tortured by the Salvadoran government, so proving past persecution seems easy,” he wrote. “Admittedly, nexus to a protected ground may be a bit trickier. That said, the discretionary nature of asylum is the largest barrier to a victory.”
Abrego Garcia said he was severely beaten and psychologically tortured at CECOT, a mega prison in El Salvador where the country’s dictator has indiscriminately rounded up anyone he pleases.
“The *only* reason he was ineligible for asylum in 2019 was his failure to file within one year of entering the country,” Reichlin-Melnick wrote. “Now he’s left and come back, so a new one-year clock is running, and he still has no disqualifying criminal convictions.”
This means the Trump administration may have shot itself in the foot by Abrego Garcia’s illegally deporting him and then bringing him back to the U.S. to face new charges, because it allowed him to reopen his asylum claim. However, Reichlin-Melnick said the case is “likely to drag out for years.”
Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, who’s overseen Abrego Garcia’s lawsuits against the administration but does not have jurisdiction over the asylum claim, said she intends to move quickly on Abrego Garcia’s attempt to block the Trump administration from deporting him to Uganda. She said she will keep an order in place that prevents Abrego Garcia from being moved outside the continental U.S. while his new suit is unresolved.
“All indications point to me that we need to get this part of Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case moving,” she said.
The Trump administration said last week that it intends to send Abrego Garcia to Uganda, a dangerous country that he has never been to. The State Department recommends that Americans reconsider traveling to Uganda based on violent crime and terrorism.
“We are not going to stop coming after him,” a senior Trump administration official toldRolling Stone at the time. “If this criminal wanted amnesty, he should have prayed for Kamala to win. She didn’t. President Trump did… He isn’t getting away.”
