Salvadoran Immigrant Fights Deportation, Seeks Asylum in the U.S.

On August 27, 2025, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man, has requested an immigration judge to reopen his immigration proceedings and is seeking asylum in the United States. Abrego Garcia was taken into immigration custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Baltimore on August 26, 2025, after being released from criminal custody in Tennessee, where he was awaiting trial on human smuggling charges.

Abrego Garcia, who came to the U.S. unlawfully in 2011, had previously been deported to El Salvador in March 2025, but the government later acknowledged this was an administrative error as he had legal protection that prohibited his removal. Abrego Garcia filed a lawsuit over his deportation, and a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the U.S., which occurred in early June 2025.

However, upon his release from criminal custody in Tennessee on August 23, 2025, Abrego Garcia was summoned for an interview with ICE in Baltimore, where he was then taken into custody and was being processed for deportation to Uganda. Abrego Garcia swiftly filed a petition challenging the legality of his detention, and a U.S. District Judge has issued a temporary order blocking his removal to Uganda and keeping him in ICE detention within 200 miles of Greenbelt, Maryland, until a ruling on his habeas petition.

The judge has scheduled an evidentiary hearing for October 6, 2025, and plans to issue a decision within 30 days. Abrego Garcia's attorney has stated that the Salvadoran man is now seeking asylum in the United States, despite his previous asylum application being denied in 2019 for being filed too late.