Attorneys for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a Friday letter that they intend to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the African nation of Eswatini after he expressed a fear of deportation to Uganda.
The letter from ICE to Abrego Garcia's attorneys was earlier reported by Fox News. It states that his fear of persecution or torture in Uganda is “hard to take seriously, especially given that you have claimed (through your attorneys) that you fear persecution or torture in at least 22 different countries. ...Nonetheless, we hereby notify you that your new country of removal is Eswatini.”
Eswatini’s government spokesperson told The Associated Press on Saturday that it had no received no communication regarding Abrego Garcia’s transfer there.
The Salvadoran man lived in Maryland for more than a decade before he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador earlier this year. That set off a series of contentious court battles that have turned his case into a test of the limits of President Donald Trump's hardline immigration policies.
Although Abrego Garcia immigrated to the U.S. illegally around the year 2011, when he was a teenager, he has an American wife and child. A 2019 immigration court order barred his deportation to his native El Salvador, finding he had a credible fear of threats from gangs there. He was deported anyway in March — in what a government attorney said was an administrative error — and held in the country's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center.
Facing a court order, the Trump administration returned him to the U.S. in June only to charge him with human smuggling based on a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. While that court case is ongoing, ICE now seeks to deport him again. For his part, Abrego Garcia is requesting asylum in the United States.
He was denied asylum in 2019 because his request came more than a year after he arrived in the U.S., his attorney Simon Sandoval-Mosenberg has said. Since he was deported and has now re-entered the U.S., the attorney said he is now eligible for asylum.
“If Mr. Abrego Garcia is allowed a fair trial in immigration court, there’s no way he’s not going to prevail on his claim,” he said in an emailed statement.
As part of his asylum claim, Abrego Garcia expressed a fear of deportation to Uganda and “nearly two dozen” other countries, according an ICE court filing in opposition to reopening his asylum case. That Thursday filing also states that if the case is reopened, the 2019 order barring his deportation to El Salvador would become void and the government would pursue his removal to that country.
FILE - Kilmar Abrego Garcia joins supporters in a protest rally outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Baltimore, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough, File)
ISTANBUL (AP) — A Turkish court on Thursday issued a ruling that effectively removed the head of the country’s main opposition party by annulling a 2023 congress that elected him.
The move deals a serious blow to the beleaguered Republican People’s Party, or CHP, as it struggles under waves of legal cases targeting its members and elected officials.
An appeals court in Turkey’s capital Ankara declared the CHP congress that picked Ozgur Ozel as chairman to be null, ordering that he should be replaced by his predecessor, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
Last year, a lower court ruled against claims of irregularities and misconduct surrounding Ozel’s election but Thursday’s decision overturned the original verdict.
The ruling led to frantic meetings at the CHP’s Ankara headquarters, further threatening the opposition’s chances of unseating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after more than two decades in office. Large crowds gathered outside the office block and police erected barriers.
The next presidential election is due in 2028 but Erdogan can call for an early vote. His main challenger, the CHP mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu, has been imprisoned since March last year and is currently on trial on corruption charges.
The appeals court's decision suspends Ozel and members of the party’s executive board from their duties. They will be “provisionally” replaced by Kilicdaroglu and those who held office before the November 2023 congress.
In comments to broadcaster TV100, Kilicdaroglu called for party members to remain calm. “Our party is a very large party and it will solve its own problems internally,” he said. The 77-year-old was removed following a 13-year tenure as leader, during which the CHP failed to win any national elections.
Ozel, meanwhile, attempted to rally supporters.
“I am not promising you a path to power through a rose garden,” he posted on X following the ruling. “I am promising you the ability to endure suffering but never surrender. I am promising you honor, dignity, courage and struggle!”
The CHP is expected to challenge Thursday’s ruling in the Supreme Court in the coming days.
Justice Minister Akin Gurlek, who oversaw several cases against the CHP in his former role as Istanbul’s chief prosecutor, described the court’s ruling as one that “reinforces our citizens’ trust in democracy.”
Many observers have said that the legal cases against the CHP — mostly centered on corruption allegations — are politically motivated and aimed at neutralizing the party ahead of the next election. The government, however, insists that Turkey’s courts are impartial and act independently of political pressure.
Erdogan has ruled Turkey, first as prime minister and then as president, since 2003. His electoral record suffered a serious blow in 2019 when the CHP seized control of several major cities in local elections. In Istanbul, Imamoglu emerged as a popular and charismatic figure that many felt could successfully topple Erdogan.
FILE - Republican People's Party or (CHP) leader Ozgur Ozel gestures to party members during his speech during a CHP convention, in Ankara, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Ali Unal, File)
FILE - Turkish CHP party leader and Nation Alliance's presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, center, joins legislators elected to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey as they attend their first parliamentary session, in Ankara, Turkey, June 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Ali Unal, File)
