3 questions hanging on Abrego Garcia’s fight against Uganda deportation

Date:2025-08-27 21:54:27 Category:politics Views:2 Comment:0

Related video: Maryland Rep. Glenn Ivey On Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s Deportation Threat, Potential Redistricting | SUNRISE

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported but later returned to the U.S., is gearing up for a new phase in his battle with the Trump administration, now staving off efforts to deport him to Uganda.

An evidentiary hearing is set to be scheduled in coming days, where U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis will weigh whether Abrego Garcia can be sent to the third country, where he has no known ties, despite raising fears of persecution and a willingness to be sent somewhere else.

She was wary Monday of the Trump administration’s moves so far but said it’s not too late for the government to “right the ship.” A Justice Department lawyer objected to her preliminary findings.

Here are three key questions the hearing could answer.

Does Abrego Garcia have a right to choose where he’s deported?

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers argue that the Trump administration cannot send him to Uganda because he has designated another country as the place he wishes to be sent: Costa Rica.

It became known last week that Costa Rica was on the table as a potential place to send Abrego Garcia, when his lawyers said he was presented with a deal to be removed there if he agreed to plead guilty and serve prison time in his human smuggling case first.

A letter from the Costa Rican government, filed publicly in Abrego Garcia’s criminal case, indicated that the country would accept him as a lawful immigrant and not send him back to El Salvador, his home country that he fled out of fear for his safety.

When he declined to extend his stay in jail, opting to be released Friday, the government changed course and said it planned to send him to Uganda.

But on Saturday, Abrego Garcia signed a document designating Costa Rica as his preferred country of removal, sealed court filings obtained by The Hill sister network DC News Now show.

Federal law dictates that noncitizens may “designate one country to which the alien wants to be removed,” at which point “the Attorney General shall remove the alien to the country the alien so designates.”

There are four exceptions to that rule:

A noncitizen fails to designate a country promptly

The designated country’s government doesn’t say whether it will accept the noncitizen, within 30 days of the attorney general’s inquiry

The designated country declines to accept the noncitizen

The attorney general decides that removing the noncitizen to the country is “prejudicial to the United States”

The law lists off six other removal options before concluding with “if impracticable, inadvisable, or impossible” to remove the noncitizen to the countries described in the previous clauses, the government may select “another country whose government will accept the alien into that country.”

Xinis expressed an interest in exploring the law further, saying there “may be a violation.”

What would happen to him in Uganda?

If sent to Uganda, Abrego Garcia says he has reason to fear his safety.

On Saturday, he signed a notice of fear of removal to Uganda, accounting concerns of persecution for his race, nationality and beliefs; “torture by or at the acquiescence” of a public official there; and being sent back to his home country to face the same fate.

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, one of Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, told reporters Monday that his reasoning stems both from the “general situation” in the country and the “lack of assurances” that he could live there “at liberty,” without the risk of being quickly re-deported to El Salvador.

Xinis noted that it’s unclear what, if anything, the government will say about the protections Uganda has offered Abrego Garcia through the United States.

“The silence is taken certainly in contrast to what’s been provided by the country of Costa Rica,” Xinis said. “The contrast is significant.”

By signing the notice, Abrego Garcia is entitled to a reasonable fear interview, Sandoval-Moshenberg said.

“To me, it seems very clear — crystal clear — that while we’re waiting for that interview to be scheduled, while we’re waiting for the results of that interview, they can’t put him on a plane,” he said.

What went down with the plea deal in his criminal case?

Xinis also raised the plea deal initially offered to Abrego Garcia in his criminal case as cause for concern.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers said the offer came in Thursday night, on the eve of his release. It would be “off the table forever” by Monday, when he reported to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore, they said.

They’ve framed the deal as an attempt to coerce Abrego Garcia into a guilty plea so he could be deported to his country of choice.

The Justice Department has not had a chance to respond in court filings in this case. But in the criminal case, it rejected the notion that the plea negotiations were anything nefarious.

Prosecutors said in court filings they had been engaged in plea negotiations since July, as is common in criminal cases. They called Abrego Garcia’s lawyers’ allegations “misleading” and suggested it left the court with a “misimpression of the true facts.”

But, at least until the hearing, Xinis said she had made up her mind on the matter.

She said Monday that, at least preliminarily, a showing has been made that the Justice Department conditioned Abrego Garcia’s country of removal on whether he accepted the deal – and because he exercised his constitutional right to a trial, he’d be sent to Uganda instead of Costa Rica.

“You can’t condition the relinquishing of a constitutional right in that regard,” she said.

Welcome to The Gavel, The Hill’s weekly courts newsletter. Zach is off this week. I’m Ella Lee. Reach out to me on X (@ByEllaLee) or Signal (elee.03) with news tips. Not on the list? Sign up here or using the box below.

IN FOCUS

Lisa Cook to fight Trump firing; Claws sharpen to keep Habba in role

Fed’s Lisa Cook to take Trump to court over firing

Trump’s quest to expand executive power will soon be back in the courts.

His unprecedented effort to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook late Monday sets up a legal battle that could redefine the president’s power over an institution traditionally seen as arm’s-length from the political whims of the White House.

Cook, meanwhile, has vowed to fight her dismissal from the Fed, tapping a high-powered Washington lawyer who specializes in representing litigants targeted by Trump to take on her case.

It’s a battle likely destined for the Supreme Court, which may be asked to draw the line on the president’s removal powers.

“President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook,” her lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement. “His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis.

“We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action.”

The focus of the legal fight will likely be the meaning of “for cause” removal, specifically pertaining to the central bank. The Federal Reserve Act states that each member of its governing board will serve a 14-year term, unless sooner removed “for cause” by the president.

The courts have never weighed the question because no president has ever attempted to remove a Fed governor. But they’ll likely be asked to define it and determine whether Trump’s allegations measure up.

In his letter to Cook declaring her removal, Trump pointed to a criminal referral from the Federal Housing Finance Agency that asserts she may have made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements. It echoes allegations against New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who have denied wrongdoing.

The referral alleges that, weeks apart, Cook wrote in mortgage documents for Michigan and Georgia properties that each was her “primary residence,” a statement that can result in a lower rate. Trump called that “cause” for her removal.

“The American people must be able to have full confidence in the honesty of members entrusted with setting policy and overseeing the Federal Reserve,” Trump wrote. “In light of your deceitful and potentially criminal conduct in a financial matter, they cannot and I do not have such confidence in your integrity.”

Lowell, Cook’s lawyer, is also representing James as the Trump administration investigates her personal real estate. He previously represented former President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, against criminal gun and tax charges, and ex-Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) in his corruption case.

Once Cook’s lawsuit is filed, the likely first step is to seek an injunction barring Trump’s order from taking effect, allowing her to continue in her role.

If it eventually reaches the Supreme Court, it’s not clear how the legal challenge will be met.

The justices have increasingly signaled interest in gutting precedent that has kept certain federal agency leaders from facing presidential firings at-will for nearly a century, but earlier this year, they also warned that the Fed could be an exception.

In a May emergency ruling that greenlit Trump’s terminations of Democratic appointees at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), they said, in short, the Fed is different.

“The Federal Reserve is a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States,” the court stressed.

But that “poses a puzzle,” the court’s liberal justices, wrote in dissent.

“For the Federal Reserve’s independence rests on the same constitutional and analytic foundations as that of the NLRB, MSPB, FTC, FCC, and so on,” Justice Elena Kagan said.

Trump sharpens claws in Habba fight

Alina Habba has for years been one of President Trump’s staunchest defenders in and outside the courtroom.

Now, he’s sharpening his claws for the fight to keep her installed as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor.

Trump’s Justice Department on Monday said it will appeal a judge’s ruling barring Habba from overseeing federal cases in the role, while the president himself said he was eying legal action against a longstanding Senate practice that has stopped controversial nominees from maintaining their positions.

Trump was forced to withdraw Habba’s nomination for U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey after the clock ran out on her interim term and federal judges declined to keep her in the position, instead tapping her deputy for the role, who was then swiftly fired by Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Since then, Habba has served as acting U.S. attorney. But a judge last week ruled that she has done so unlawfully since July 24, after the Trump administration used a “novel series of legal and personnel moves” to keep her in the role.

The question of her legitimacy has caused chaos in New Jersey’s courts already. In a court filing Tuesday, the Justice Department said that at least 12 federal judges in New Jersey had adjourned matters, from trials to guilty plea hearings and sentencings, while waiting for answers — even before the judge had ruled.

The administration’s decision to appeal signals the president is digging his heels in on behalf of one of his most loyal nominees.

He’s already fighting her rejection through the judiciary. But on Monday, he signaled an interest in taking the fight to Congress, too.

“You’ll be hearing about the blue slipping,” Trump said during a winding press event, announcing he planned to file a lawsuit against the practice that lets home-state senators veto nominees to district courts and U.S. attorneys’ offices.

Both of New Jersey’s Democratic senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, opposed Habba’s nomination as the state’s top federal prosecutor. Several of his most loyal nominees have also failed to gain enough support in the upper chamber to assume the posts to which they were nominated permanently.

Trump said the “gentleman’s agreement” makes it impossible to push through his nominees.

“Because if you have — you don’t need two senators, you just need one Democrat senator with a Republican,” he said.

But that might also make it difficult to mount a successful legal challenge.

“The idea of filing a lawsuit challenging the Senate Judiciary Committee’s blue-slip practice is loony,” Ed Whelan, a conservative legal commentator, wrote on X.

The practice is not codified in law nor written into the Senate’s official rules; it’s merely tradition. A judge might not take it seriously as a legal claim, so much as a political dispute between two coequal branches of government.

In fact, a federal judge on Tuesday threw out the Trump administration’s lawsuit against all 15 federal district judges in Maryland on similar grounds.

Though the administration’s complaints about the court’s challenged standing order were “fair enough,” U.S. District Judge Thomas Cullen said suing the entire bench wasn’t the right way to go about seeking reprieve.

“If these arguments were made in the proper forum, they might well get some traction,” he said.

SIDEBAR

5 top docket updates

Abrego Garcia battle resumes: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported but later returned to the U.S., filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to deport him again — this time to Uganda, a country to which he has no known ties. He was detained Monday morning after being freed from custody in a criminal case filed against him in federal court in Tennessee on Friday.

FBI raid Bolton: Federal agents searched the Washington-area home and office of Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton on Friday morning, an effort related to classified documents.

DEI dollars drained: The Supreme Court said the Trump administration can cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants linked to diversity initiatives in a 5-4 ruling Thursday.

Trump fraud appeal: A New York appeals court threw out the roughly $500 million civil fraud penalty against Trump and his business empire on Thursday but left the case intact.

0-3 on Epstein: A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s bid to unseal grand jury materials used to charge disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein with sex trafficking, the third judge to rule against the administration in its efforts to unseal the typically secret documents.

In other news

New job, who dis: Law firm Foley Hoag announced that Hampton Dellinger, the former U.S. Special Counsel who challenged his firing by Trump, has joined its ranks as a partner in its Washington, D.C. office. Former Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who served in the role under President Biden, is also rejoining the law firm Cooley to lead its Supreme Court and appellate practice group in D.C.

In the hot seat: A judge ordered Kari Lake, a Trump ally and senior advisor at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, to sit for a deposition in a last-ditch bid to stave off a contempt trial over her refusal to provide information about efforts to dismantle the agency.

Menendez brothers won’t go free: A California board denied parole to Lyle and Eric Menendez. It’s the closest the brothers have come to being released in decades, since their life sentences were reduced in May for their convictions in the 1989 murder of their parents.

Update from a different Menendez: The wife of ex-Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Nadine Menendez, asked a judge to sentence her to a year and one day in prison for her role in the bribery scheme that also sent her husband and two New Jersey businessmen to prison. She points to a “lifetime of trauma,” from her childhood in warworn Lebanon to her current cancer.

ON THE DOCKET

Don’t be surprised if additional hearings are scheduled throughout the week. But here’s what we’re watching for now:

Today:

Xinis, the judge overseeing Abrego Garcia’s new lawsuit, is set to hold a scheduling conference where she will likely pick a date to hold an evidentiary hearing.

Louisiana’s brief in a redistricting dispute regarding the creation of a second majority-Black congressional district is due to be filed at the Supreme Court, after the justices sought supplemental briefing despite hearing oral arguments in March. The brief of the Black voters who challenged the 2022 map is also due.

Thursday:

A federal judge in California is set to hold a summary judgment hearing in a coalition of government worker unions’ challenge to the Office of Personnel Management’s directive to fire probationary employees.

Friday:

No notable hearings are scheduled.

Monday:

The courts are closed for Labor Day.

Tuesday:

A federal judge in Massachusetts is set to hold the final pretrial conference a challenge to the National Institutes of Health’s termination of various grants over concerns they promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). The bench trial is set for Sept. 15.