NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A U.S. immigration choose has denied a bid for asylum from Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case has develop into a proxy for the partisan energy wrestle over immigration policy.
The choose in Baltimore on Wednesday rejected an software to reopen Abrego Garcia’s 2019 asylum case, however that isn’t the ultimate phrase. Abrego Garcia has 30 days to attraction to the Board of Immigration Appeals.
The Salvadoran national has an American spouse and youngsters and has lived in Maryland for years, however he immigrated to the USA illegally as an adolescent. In 2019, he was arrested by immigration brokers. He requested asylum however was not eligible as a result of he had been within the U.S. for greater than a 12 months. However the choose dominated he could not be deported to El Salvador, the place he confronted hazard from a gang that focused his household.
He was mistakenly deported to El Salvador by President Donald Trump’s administration in March and was held in a notorious prison, and his case quickly turned a rallying level for individuals who oppose the Republican president’s immigration crackdown. Going through a ruling from the Supreme Court docket, the administration returned him to the U.S. in June, solely to right away cost him with human smuggling.
AP Picture/Stephanie Scarbrough
Abrego Garcia faces felony costs in Tennessee, based mostly on a 2022 traffic stop. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can be in search of to deport him to a third country, proposing Uganda first after which Eswatini, a small nation in southern Africa the place the king nonetheless holds absolute energy. His attorneys have denounced the felony costs and the deportation efforts, saying they’re an attempt to punish him for standing as much as the administration.
Abrego Garcia’s request to reopen his asylum case is a calculated danger. If authorized, asylum might present him with a inexperienced card and a path to citizenship. But when he loses, an immigration choose might take away his safety from being returned to his native nation. That might place him again within the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT. It’s the place, he alleges in a lawsuit, he suffered extreme beatings, sleep deprivation and psychological torture. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has denied those allegations.
Trump administration officers have waged a relentless public relations marketing campaign towards Abrego Garcia, repeatedly referring to him as a member of the MS-13 gang, amongst different issues, regardless of the actual fact he has not been convicted of any crimes.
His legal professionals have filed motions requesting a gag order and say he won’t be able to obtain a good trial due to the “extremely prejudicial, inflammatory, and false statements” made about him.
Whereas the federal choose in Tennessee can order prosecutors there to not make any prejudicial statements about Abrego Garcia, it’s unclear whether or not the choose’s authority extends to the Division of Homeland Safety, which posted in regards to the immigration courtroom ruling on X on Wednesday.
“His legal professionals tried to combat his removing from the U.S. however one factor is definite, this Salvadoran man will not be going to have the ability to stay in our nation,” in line with the put up.
