Kilmar Abrego Garcia says Trump administration using threatened deportation to Uganda to coerce guilty plea

Source: Politico

08/23/2025 12:32 PM EDT


Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man illegally deported to El Salvador in March and returned in June to face human smuggling charges that he denies, is accusing the Trump administration of attempting to coerce him into a guilty plea by threatening to re-deport him to Uganda.

Attorneys for Abrego said in a Saturday court filing the Justice Department is pressuring him to accept a guilty plea to two felony counts, promising to deport him to Costa Rica — where he would be free from incarceration — after the completion of any criminal sentence.

“In conjunction with that proposal, the government produced a letter to Mr. Abrego’s counsel confirming that he could live freely in that country, which would accept him as a refugee or grant him residency status, and promise not to refoul him to El Salvador,” Abrego’s lawyers indicated in court papers.

But after Abrego resisted that proposal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told his lawyers that they had decided instead to deport him to Uganda. Government officials informed Abrego’s lawyers that the Costa Rica option would remain on the table if he pleads guilty by Monday, his attorneys wrote.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/23/kilmar-abrego-garcia-deportation-00521576

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They went so OTT far out in left field with the cosplay/reality show threats and boasts shit, with no "exit strategy", that they are in a bind and trying to get out of it.