Abrego Garcia objects: Don’t send me to Liberia

Kilmar Abrego Garcia now says he fears persecution if he’s sent to Liberia, as America’s most prominent migrant tries again to derail a looming deportation.

Hours after the Trump administration informed a court that the West African country agreed to take Mr. Abrego Garcia, he told the judge that he has a “reasonable fear” of going there. That’s a term of art that, his lawyers argued, gives him a chance to challenge the deportation.

His lawyers said he would prefer to go to Costa Rica, which is much closer to the conditions of his native El Salvador than Liberia, which is in an entirely separate hemisphere.

“Costa Rica has agreed to accept him, and the attorney general has not so much as proffered a reason that removal to Costa Rica would prejudice the United States,” said Jonathan Cooper, one of the lawyers.

Mr. Cooper also said it’s untenable for the U.S. government to continue to hold Mr. Abrego Garcia in immigration detention, given the availability of Costa Rica.

Justice Department lawyer Drew Ensign told Judge Paula Xinis in a court filing Friday about the Liberian option, calling it a stable democracy with a commitment to human rights and a long association with the U.S.

“Defendants expect to be able to effectuate removal as soon as October 31,” Mr. Ensign said.

He said Mr. Abrego Garcia objected to some 20 countries in his potential deportation list, but Liberia wasn’t one of them.

It is now.

Mr. Abrego Garcia was the subject of a gripping deportation battle last spring, when he was sent to his home country of El Salvador despite an immigration judge’s ruling that it was the one country he couldn’t be sent to.

Judge Xinis ordered him returned, but the U.S. resisted, labeling him a dangerous member of the MS-13 gang. Then, with legal pressure mounting, the administration did an about-face and brought him back, only this time to face a criminal charge of smuggling based on a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, where he was found with a carload of illegal immigrants.

A judge in that criminal case ordered his release pending trial, so the government quickly moved to rearrest him as a deportable alien. He has been battling for release from that custody before the same Maryland federal judge who first ordered him brought back from El Salvador.

Under his standing deportation order, Mr. Abrego Garcia can’t be sent to El Salvador because he would face retribution from 18th Street, a rival gang to MS-13. But he can still be sent to what’s known as a third country — another nation willing to take him.

He suggested Costa Rica. The U.S. government has suggested others, but many of those have been clear in rejecting him. That list includes Uganda, Eswatini and Ghana.

Mr. Abrego Garcia’s lawyers, in their new filing this week, wondered why the administration was searching for an option in Africa when one much closer — and better for Mr. Abrego Garcia — was available in Central America.

“If the government does not intend to remove petitioner to Costa Rica, which apparently it does not, then this court should order his release,” Mr. Cooper said.