The saga of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man at the center of a high-profile immigration battle, has taken yet another dramatic turn. After months of legal wrangling and shifting government strategies, the Trump administration announced on September 5, 2025, that it now plans to deport Abrego Garcia to Eswatini—a small, landlocked nation in southern Africa—after previously targeting El Salvador and Uganda as destinations for his removal. The move has drawn sharp criticism from his attorneys and sparked renewed debate over the government’s hardline immigration tactics, with the case morphing into a test of the administration’s willingness to push the boundaries of deportation policy.
According to ABC News, the announcement came via an email from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official addressed to Abrego Garcia’s legal team. The official wrote that Abrego Garcia’s claim of fearing persecution in Uganda was “hard to take seriously,” noting that he had also expressed fear of persecution or torture in at least 22 other countries, including El Salvador, Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Haiti. “Nonetheless, we hereby notify you that your new country of removal is Eswatini, Africa,” the email stated, as reported by Fox News and The Associated Press.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys swiftly responded, highlighting the grave risks he would face if deported to Eswatini. "Third-country nationals previously removed from the United States to Eswatini have all been detained in extremely harsh and tortuous conditions; that country has a well-documented record of human rights violations," his attorneys wrote in an email to ICE. They added, "To our knowledge, Eswatini has offered no guarantees that it will not promptly deport Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador where he already experienced torture and will experience torture again."
For its part, the government of Eswatini seemed caught off guard by the development. As The Associated Press reported on September 6, a spokesperson for Eswatini stated that the country had received no communication from U.S. authorities regarding Abrego Garcia’s possible transfer.
Abrego Garcia’s ordeal began earlier this year when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in March 2025, despite a 2019 U.S. immigration court order barring his removal to his native country due to credible fears of gang-related violence. Upon arrival, he was detained in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT mega-prison—also known as the Terrorism Confinement Center—before being transferred to another facility. According to court filings reviewed by ABC News, the Trump administration later described his imprisonment as "both a lawful sanction and one not specifically intended to cause the requisite pain or suffering," dismissing concerns that his experience amounted to torture.
The U.S. government returned Abrego Garcia to the United States in June 2025, following a court order, only to charge him with human trafficking based on a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his family and attorneys have repeatedly denied government allegations that he is a member of the notorious MS-13 gang. "He has engaged in extensive criminal activities since he has been in the United States," the government asserted in court filings. "He is a known member of the MS-13, a dangerous FTO [foreign terrorist organization]." But his legal team and loved ones insist the accusations are unfounded and part of a broader effort to justify his removal.
Currently, Abrego Garcia is being held at an immigration detention center in Farmville, Virginia, as he awaits the outcome of his ongoing legal battles. A federal judge has blocked his deportation until at least early October 2025, giving his attorneys a narrow window to reopen his immigration case and seek asylum on his behalf. According to his attorney Simon Sandoval-Mosenberg, Abrego Garcia is now eligible to apply for asylum because his most recent entry into the U.S. occurred within the past year. “If Mr. Abrego Garcia is allowed a fair trial in immigration court, there’s no way he’s not going to prevail on his claim,” Sandoval-Mosenberg said in an emailed statement, as cited by The Baltimore Sun.
But the government is not backing down. In a court filing submitted to the Baltimore Immigration Court on September 4, 2025, officials stated that if the judge grants the motion to reopen Abrego Garcia’s case, the Department of Homeland Security will pursue his removal to El Salvador, arguing that his prior withholding of removal would no longer be valid. The government further contended that Abrego Garcia’s request to reopen his case "fails to show that country conditions in El Salvador have materially changed, and it further fails to establish that he is eligible for asylum." They also argued that even if his previous imprisonment in El Salvador amounted to torture, "past torture is not determinative of the likelihood of future torture."
Abrego Garcia’s case has become a flashpoint in the national debate over immigration enforcement, with advocates pointing to it as an example of the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive tactics. According to Reuters, the administration has at times offered to deport Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica if he agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges, and threatened to send him to Uganda if he refused. The U.S. has also sent deportation flights to Eswatini carrying individuals described by a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson as "so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back."
Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, is a small country roughly the size of New Jersey. Governed by an absolute monarch, it is one of only four African nations currently cooperating with the Trump administration on deportation matters, according to Reuters. Human rights organizations have long documented harsh detention conditions and widespread abuses in Eswatini’s prison system, raising serious concerns about the safety of deportees sent there.
Abrego Garcia’s personal story is no less complex. He entered the United States illegally as a teenager around 2011 and settled in Maryland with his wife and their child, both U.S. citizens, along with two of his wife’s children. Despite his deep ties to the community and his family’s American citizenship, his future now hangs in the balance as the courts weigh his fate and the administration pursues every available avenue for his removal.
As the legal battle grinds on, the stakes remain high—not only for Abrego Garcia and his family, but for the broader contours of U.S. immigration policy. The government’s shifting strategies, the international dimensions of the case, and the fierce contest between legal advocates and federal officials have turned this once-obscure case into a national symbol of the complexities and controversies that define America’s immigration system today.
For now, Abrego Garcia remains in limbo, his future uncertain, as the courts and the administration continue their high-stakes tug-of-war over where—if anywhere—he will ultimately be sent.
