The Trump administration is seeking to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an alleged MS-13 gang member and accused human smuggler and domestic abuser, to Liberia.
In a court filing from the Department of Justice (DOJ), the agency revealed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had “identified a new country for removal” of Abrego Garcia. The DOJ noted that DHS expected to provide Abrego Garcia with “the requisite formal notice” of their decision to send him to Liberia “later today” and that Abrego Garcia could be removed from the United States as soon as Friday, October 31.
The filing comes after a federal judge, in early October, denied a motion by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys to reopen his case, and upheld a “final deportation order” against him.
“Federal Defendants hereby provide notice that they have identified a new country for removal that has agreed to accept Petitioner: the Republic of Liberia,” the filing says. “Although Petitioner has identified more than twenty countries that he purports to fear would persecute or torture him if he were removed there, Liberia is not on that list.”
Liberia was described as being a “thriving democracy,” which is one of the United States’s “closest partners on the African continent.”
“Since its founding more than two centuries ago by American émigrés, Liberia has maintained strong connections to the United States,” the filing continued. “Indeed, Liberia named its capital, Monrovia, in honor of a U.S. president; its national language is English, the same as the country in which Petitioner has resided for the last several years; and it modeled its constitution, which has been in place since 1986 and which provides robust protections for human rights, in large part on the U.S. Constitution.”
Democrats and the media have rallied around Abrego Garcia and described him as a “Maryland Man,” after he was arrested and deported to El Salvador earlier this year.
In a statement in April, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that Abrego Garcia was “actually a leader, of the brutal MS-13 gang” who was allegedly “involved in human trafficking.”
“The administration maintains the position that this individual — who was deported to El Salvador, and will not be returning to our country, was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang. That is fact number one,” Leavitt said. “Fact number two, we also have credible intelligence proving that this individual was involved in human trafficking. And, fact number three, this individual was a member, actually a leader, of the brutal MS-13 gang — which this President has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.”
While Abrego Garcia has denied involvement with MS-13, he has also faced accusations that he was violent with his wife on multiple occasions.
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