The Trump administration is struggling to find an African nation that will take Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia in its second attempt to deport him.
The Department of Homeland Security has notified Abrego Garcia that he would be deported to Eswatini, Uganda and Ghana. But none of those countries have actually agreed to accept the man whose wrongful deportation to El Salvador has extended into several months-long legal battles with the federal government that required the intervention of the Supreme Court.
Testifying in a federal court Friday, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said he learned from officials at DHS and the Department of State this week that Uganda and Eswatini, an absolute monarchy formerly known as Swaziland, had declined to accept Abrego Garcia.
The testimony from John Schultz, a deputy assistant director for removal management at ICE, revealed details of the Trump administration’s efforts to deport Abrego Garcia, who is challenging his removal in federal court.
ICE mistakenly notified Abrego Garcia, who’s in detention in Pennsylvania, on Thursday that it intended to deport him to Ghana. The move drew ire on social media from Ghana’s foreign minister Friday.
“Ghana is not accepting Abrego Garcia,” Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa posted on X. “He cannot be deported to Ghana. This has been directly and unambiguously conveyed to US authorities.”
Schultz said he believed “the field office was just trying to get ahead of things so that if Ghana did say yes removal would be quicker,” adding that deportation could happen in 72 hours if a country agreed to take him.
Schultz also said the State Department formally requested Eswatini to accept Abrego Garcia Wednesday evening and that conversations were ongoing. Jonathan Gwynn, an attorney representing the government, insisted that despite the refusal of Ghana and Eswatini to admit Abrego Garcia, conversations about his removal to those nations were ongoing.
The Friday hearing comes after U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis rejected Monday the Department of Justice’s request to pause the lawsuit seeking Abrego Garcia’s release because of the lapse in government funding.
At a hearing on Monday, Xinis admonished attorneys representing the government for not providing information about what steps the government had taken to once again deport Abrego Garcia and demanded they bring an official with first-hand knowledge of his case to testify on Friday.
However, Schultz said that prior to this week he hadn’t dealt with Abrego Garcia’s case.
Costa Rica was “still on the table” if Eswatini didn’t take Abrego Garcia, Gwynn said. The Central American country had previously agreed to receive Abrego Garcia, which the Trump administration offered as a deal if he pleaded guilty to human smuggling charges.
Xinis reprimanded attorneys for the Trump administration, pressing them as to why the government had taken no steps to deport Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica, which he has selected as a favored country for removal, without the condition of pleading guilty.
“It doesn’t take that long to figure this out,” the judge said Friday.
If the government moves to deport Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica, he is prepared to leave the country, said Andrew Rossman, one of his attorneys.
A separate federal judge in Nashville gave the green light last week for Abrego Garcia’s attorneys to move forward with claims that the human smuggling charges brought against him after his return to the U.S. were vindictive.
A group of supporters gathered outside the Maryland court Friday calling for Abrego Garcia’s release.
“The Department of Homeland Security served Kilmar with notice that they intend to deport him to Ghana, the latest country on the government’s cruel game of spin the wheel,” said Ama Frimpong, the legal director of the CASA advocacy group, during a press conference in front of the Maryland courthouse. “They are playing with Kilmar’s future, first Uganda, then Eswatini and now Ghana.”
This article has been updated with further comments from the hearing.