Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin may have derailed his own agency’s months-long attempts to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia — whose case has been a lightning rod in the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign — to Liberia.
The administration has spent a year trying to deport the Salvadoran immigrant a second time after the government was ordered to return him to the U.S. from a brutal prison in his home country last year.
But the administration has, at the same time, tried to deport him to at least five different countries, including four in Africa. In April, the administration “analyzed and eliminated all other options” from the table and settled on Liberia as “a final country of removal,” despite his own attempts to remove himself to Costa Rica.
Mullin, who admitted he is not familiar with the ins and outs of a case that has dominated coverage of the administration’s anti-immigration agenda, told members of Congress that the U.S. will “gladly” send him there.
“Great, if he’s willing to do that we’d be happy to send him,” Mullin told the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Abrego Garcia’s legal team has taken notice.
On Wednesday, lawyers for Abrego Garcia told the federal judge overseeing his lawsuit over his wrongful removal cited Mullin’s remarks “as further evidence” against his deportation.
The Independent has requested comment from Homeland Security.
Donald Trump’s administration has been fighting in court to re-deport Abrego Garcia even as federal prosecutors have been trying to bring a parallel criminal case against him to trial.
Last month, the judge overseeing that case dismissed the indictment against him after Abrego Garcia argued he was being unlawfully targeted by the government as part of a smear campaign in retaliation for a lawsuit over his wrongful arrest and removal.
Abrego Garcia has an American wife and child and has lived in Maryland for years after fleeing gang violence in El Salvador and entering the U.S. illegally as a teenager. An immigration judge blocked the government from deporting him to his home country in 2019.
Last March, he was deported to El Salvador’s CECOT mega prison, where he says he endured torture and “severe” abuse for several weeks before he was transferred to a separate jail.
Government officials admitted in court that his removal was due to an “error,” and several federal judges and a unanimous Supreme Court ordered the administration to “facilitate” his return.
But the government spent weeks battling court orders commanding officials to “facilitate” his return, and administration officials launched a barrage of public attacks against him and declared that he would never again step foot in the country.
He was then abruptly returned to the U.S. last June — only to face allegations that he illegally moved other immigrants across the country. He pleaded not guilty.
In his ruling, Tennessee District Judge Waverly Crenshaw argued that federal prosecutors would not have brought charges against Abrego Garcia if he hadn’t sued the government over his wrongful deportation.
The government’s decision to re-open a previously closed investigation against Abrego Garcia — coupled with public statements from administration officials including Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche that tied the case to Abrego Garcia’s lawsuit — “taints the investigation with a vindictive motive,” the judge wrote.
The judge overseeing his deportation case has blocked ICE from re-deporting or detaining him, noting earlier this year that the government has made “one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success.”
In a memo issued in March, ICE’s then-acting director Todd Lyons argued that sending him to Costa Rica would be “prejudicial to the United States.”
“That, in itself, is a facially legitimate and bona fide reason” to send him to Liberia instead, Department of Justice attorneys wrote in court documents in April.
ICE has “weighed the evidence and documentation” and “decided that it is in the best interest of the United States to proceed with removal to Liberia,” they wrote.
Government lawyers argue that the U.S. has expended significant political capital and entered “high-stakes” and “extensive negotiations” to send him there.
Mullin may have unwittingly derailed those “high stakes” efforts.
“The person was illegally removed to El Salvador and this administration has admitted that,” Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen told Mullin on Tuesday.
“He is still in this country illegally,” Mullin replied.
“The point is he has said that he will be removed to Costa Rica and Costa Rica has accepted that,” Van Hollen said.
“Great,” Mullin interjected. “If he’s willing to do that, we’ll be happy to send him.”
