Kilmar Abrego Garcia ’s request for asylum in the United States is a prudent legal strategy, experts say, because it gives his lawyers better options for fighting the Trump administration’s efforts to deport him.
But it’s also a gamble. Depending on how the courts rule, Abrego Garcia could end up back inside the notorious El Salvador prison where he claims he was beaten and psychologically tortured.
“It’s a strategic move,” Memphis-based immigration attorney Andrew Rankin said of the asylum request. “And it can certainly backfire. But it’s something I would do as well if I were representing him.”
Abrego Garcia, 30, became a flashpoint over President Donald Trump’s immigration policies when he was wrongfully deported to his native country in March. The Republican administration is trying to deport him again.
Here are some things to know about his case:
‘You can’t win every case’
The administration deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador because U.S. officials said he was an MS-13 gang member. It’s an allegation that Abrego Garcia denies and for which he wasn’t charged.
His removal to El Salvador violated a U.S. immigration judge’s ruling from 2019 that barred his deportation there. The judge found that Abrego Garcia faced credible threats from a local gang that had extorted and terrorized his family.
Following a U.S. Supreme Court order, the administration returned him to the United States in June. But it was only to face human smuggling charges, which his lawyers have called preposterous and vindictive.
The administration has said it now intends to deport Abrego Garcia to the African country of Uganda. Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and the main architect of Trump’s immigration policies, told reporters Friday that Garcia has “said he doesn’t want to go back to El Salvador.”
Miller said the administration is “honoring that request by providing him with an alternate place to live.”
In an effort to fight back, Abrego Garcia has notified the U.S. government that he fears being sent to Uganda, which has documented human rights abuses. He said he believes he could be persecuted, tortured or sent from there to El Salvador.
But even if he thwarts deportation to Uganda in immigration court, he likely will face attempts to remove him to another country and then another until the administration succeeds, Rankin said.
“By the law of averages, you can’t win every case,” the lawyer said. “The government has sunk its teeth far into what they’re doing with Kilmar and immigration in general, that it wouldn’t make any sense for them to just give up the fight.”
Taking a risk
Asylum, however, could end the fight.
The request would place the focus solely back on his native El Salvador, where Abrego Garcia has previously shown that he has a credible fear of gang persecution.
But he’s taking a risk by reopening his 2019 immigration case, Rankin said. If he loses the bid for asylum, an immigration judge could remove his protection from being returned to his native country.
That could place him back in the infamous Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. It’s where, Abrego Garcia alleges in a lawsuit, he suffered severe beatings, severe sleep deprivation and psychological torture. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has denied those allegations.
Abrego Garcia had applied for asylum in 2019. The immigration judge denied his request because it came more than a year after Abrego Garcia had arrived in the U.S. He had fled to Maryland without documentation around 2011.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers will likely argue that he has the right to request asylum now because he has been in the U.S. for less than a year after being wrongfully deported to El Salvador, Rankin said.
