Immigration judge denies Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s request to reopen asylum application

The Trump administration has threatened to send the 30-year-old Maryland father to Uganda, Eswatini or Costa Rica.Show Caption

An immigration judge has denied Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s request to reopen his request for asylum.Immigration Judge Philip Taylor in Baltimore prevented the 30-year-old Salvadoran national and Maryland father on Oct. 1 from reopening his 2019 asylum case. Abrego Garcia, currently in detention, has 30 days to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals.The Department of Justice, which oversees the nation’s immigration court system, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Lawyers for Abrego Garcia didn’t immediately respond to emailed questions.Tricia McLaughlin, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the ruling means Abrego Garcia’s final removal order stands.“His lawyers tried to fight his removal from the U.S., but one thing is certain, this Salvadoran man is not going to be able to remain in our country,” McLaughlin said in a statement.Abrego Garcia, whose wife and children are American citizens, has lived in Maryland since he was a teen. In 2019, immigration agents arrested him at a Maryland Home Depot parking lot. His request for asylum then was denied, but an immigration judge prevented his deportation because of threats he received from a gang in El Salvador that targeted his family.He was working as a union sheet metal worker until he was wrongly deported to El Salvador in March in what the Trump administration described as an "administrative error." In El Salvador, he was held in a notorious mega-prison, where he said he was tortured. His winding case became a centerpiece in the Trump administration’s sweeping deportation plans. Federal officials refused to return him, accusing him of being a gang member, despite judges’ orders that he should be sent back to the United States.The administration then brought him back to face smuggling charges in Tennessee that dated back to a 2022 traffic stop. He has pleaded not guilty. As the case remains ongoing, he was released from Tennessee jail and then promptly placed in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. DHS said in August that Abrego Garcia would be processed for removal to Uganda. Officials have also indicated sending him to Eswatini or Costa Rica.Abrego Garcia's lawyers in August petitioned the Baltimore immigration court to reopen his asylum claim. Records show he’s now held in the Moshannon Valley ICE Processing Center, in Pennsylvania.