Trump Administration Moves to Deport Abrego Garcia to Liberia: What You Need to Know

In a recent move by the Justice Department, officials are considering deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia. This decision is part of a broader strategy by the administration to carry out the removal of the previously deported individual while simultaneously prosecuting him.

According to a court document filed on Friday, Liberia has agreed to accept Abrego Garcia. The Justice Department argued that the West African nation is suitable for his deportation, meeting the criteria set by Abrego Garcia himself.

“Although the petitioner has identified over twenty countries where he claims he would face persecution or torture if deported, Liberia is not among them,” the DOJ stated in the filing.

Previously, the Trump administration had explored various countries as potential destinations for deporting Abrego Garcia after mistakenly sending him to his native El Salvador. In 2019, an immigration judge halted his deportation there due to credible threats from gangs against his family.

Following several months of detention in Salvadoran prisons, Abrego Garcia was brought back by the Trump administration, only to face human smuggling charges later. These charges stemmed from a 2022 incident in Tennessee during which he was stopped in a van carrying several men who had no luggage.

Abrego Garcia has denied wrongdoing and has also sought to dismiss the case, arguing he is being selectively and vindictively prosecuted by the Trump administration given the interest in his story.

A Tennessee-based federal judge backed an initial request for discovery, passing a key hurdle to allow the claim to move forward.

As the case proceeds, the Justice Department has argued immigration authorities still have the right to carry out his deportation, a matter that has also been tied up in federal court in Maryland.

In various filings, the Justice Department has proposed deporting him to Uganda, Ghana and Eswatini, while Abrego Garcia has floated Costa Rica as an option.

Attorneys for Abrego Garcia have previously accused the DOJ of having “spun the globe” to pick locations to “troll” their client.

“Having struck out with Uganda, Eswatini and Ghana, ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] now seeks to deport our client Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia – a country with which he has no connection, thousands of miles from his family and home in Maryland,” attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg said in a statement.

“Costa Rica has agreed to accept him as a refugee, and remains a viable and lawful option. Instead, the government has chosen yet another path that feels designed to inflict maximum hardship. Their actions are punitive, cruel and unconstitutional.”

In the Friday filing, the DOJ argued Liberia should be an amenable choice for Abrego Garcia.

“Liberia is a thriving democracy and one of the United States’s closest partners on the African continent,” they wrote.

“Its national language is English, the same as the country in which Petitioner has resided for the last several years; and it modeled its constitution, which has been in place since 1986 and which provides robust protections for human rights, in large part on the U.S. Constitution. Liberia also is committed to the humane treatment of refugees.”