Newly released emails sent by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the attorneys representing Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was granted pretrial release from federal custody in Tennessee last Friday, reveal that the alleged human smuggler may be deported to Uganda by the end of the day on Wednesday.
In a Saturday legal filing which claimed Abrego Garcia is being vindictively prosecuted, his attorneys said that the Trump administration offered Abrego Garcia a deal that would see him change his plea from not guilty to guilty in order to secure removal to Costa Rica following the completion of his sentence.
Given until Monday to accept the plea deal, his attorneys said they were subsequently contacted by an official with ICE, who informed them that Abrego Garcia was ordered to appear at the ICE Baltimore Field Office on Monday.
“This courtesy email is to inform you that your client, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, was served with documentation notifying him to report” on Monday, wrote ICE Principal Legal Advisor Charles Wall in an email sent on Friday at 4 p.m., as his email appears in the Saturday legal filing by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys.
One minute later, Wall informed Abrego Garica’s attorneys of the deportation to Uganda in a second email.
In apparent compliance with the July order by U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis, who prohibited ICE from immediately arresting Abrego Garcia following his release in Tennessee, allowing him to return to Maryland, where she ordered ICE to detain him if further immigration cases against him should occur.
Wall wrote that his email should serve as notice for Abrego Garcia’s attorneys that U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees ICE, “may remove your client, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to Uganda no earlier than 72 hours from now (absent weekends).”
With the weekend excluded, this suggests Abrego Garcia could be deported any time after Wednesday at 4:01 p.m.
The removal could mark the end of a legal saga that began when Abrego Garcia became subject to a final deportation order in 2019. Earlier this year, he successfully cited this order to assert he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration in March, despite the judge’s order only forbidding his removal to Guatemala.
After the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return, Abrego Garcia was returned to Tennessee from El Salvador in June, after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi unsealed the indictment which alleges he was part of a human smuggling ring for nearly a decade.
Abrego Garcia could be among the first illegal immigrants deported to Uganda, where government officials only last week confirmed reaching an agreement with the Trump administration to accept certain illegal immigrants who cannot be deported to their homeland.
Similar deportations to El Salvador, which was the first nation to reach an agreement with the Trump administration to accept illegal immigrants from other countries, have generally involved illegal immigrants first being detained in Texas, from where the federal government arranges charter flights directly to El Salvador.
Another exhibit in Abrego Garcia’s filing contains a letter from the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica. The letter contains the specifics of the nation’s offer for Abrego Garcia to be granted refugee or residence status, and notes that he would be precluded from deportation to El Salvador once granted official status in Costa Rica.
It notably did not reference Abrego Garcia’s immediate family members, who are citizens of the United States.
The federal human smuggling case against Abrego Garcia stems from his November 2022 traffic stop by Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP), which was first reported by The Tennessee Star earlier this year. A document released by DHS later confirmed troopers suspected human trafficking, and the THP told The Star that Abrego Garcia was released at the instruction of the “Biden-era FBI.”
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and his case is currently scheduled to go to trial in January 2026.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
This guy had a deportation order years ago but chose to ignore it and stay in America. He should have been removed as soon as he was arrested.
I am so sick of hearing thos jerks name.
I VOTE HE GET DEPORTED TO UGANDA.
I’d be willing to bet He would much rather go to El Salvador.
How much tax dollars have been wasted on this POS due to Leftist Judges?