Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran, now finds himself caught in an extraordinary immigration dilemma.
After months of legal battles, he has been notified that he could be deported not to his home country, but to Eswatini — a tiny, landlocked nation in southern Africa.
His lawyers insist that sending him there would put him at serious risk.
The removal notice, shared with Fox News, listed Eswatini as Abrego Garcia’s “new country of removal.”
It also criticized his refusal to accept deportation to more than 20 other countries, including El Salvador and several Latin American nations, saying his fears of persecution were “hard to take seriously.”
Department of Homeland Security Mocks Case
Adding to the unusual nature of the situation, the Department of Homeland Security posted the ICE notice on X, writing, “Homie is afraid of the entire western hemisphere.”
The post quickly drew criticism from Abrego Garcia’s legal team, who emphasized that Eswatini is not a safe option either.
“Third-country nationals previously sent to Eswatini have faced extremely harsh and torturous conditions,” his lawyers said in an email to ICE obtained by ABC News.
They added that there were no guarantees he would not be deported from Eswatini to El Salvador, where he had already suffered torture.
The Risks of Eswatini
Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, has a population of just over a million people and shares borders with South Africa and Mozambique.
The State Department has issued a travel advisory warning Americans of frequent crime in the country, including sporadic armed robberies and carjackings.
The name was changed in 2018 by King Mswati III to reflect its historical identity and avoid confusion with Switzerland.
Lawyers argue that deporting Abrego Garcia there would not resolve his safety concerns and could put him in jeopardy once again.
A Complicated Legal History
Abrego Garcia’s case has been unusually complex.
He was living in Maryland with his wife and children when he was deported in March to El Salvador’s CECOT terrorism prison — a move that the Department of Justice later admitted was a mistake because a 2019 court order barred his removal to El Salvador due to his fear of persecution.
He was returned to the United States in June, only to face criminal charges alleging he smuggled migrants across the border.
Tennessee authorities had previously released body camera footage showing him with eight other men in a car on November 30, 2022.
Allegations and Denials
The Trump administration has repeatedly labeled Abrego Garcia as a member of the MS-13 gang.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has publicly described him as a “human trafficker, serial domestic abuser, and child predator.”
Abrego Garcia denies all these allegations and has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges.
He was re-arrested on August 25 after being released from custody a few days earlier.
Initially, the government planned to deport him to Uganda, prompting a legal battle over his destination.
Court Intervention
Currently, Abrego Garcia is being held in a Virginia immigration detention center. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis temporarily blocked his deportation to Uganda, telling government attorneys, “Your clients are absolutely forbidden at this juncture to remove Mr. Abrego Garcia from the continental United States.”
His attorneys are seeking to reopen his immigration case so he can apply for asylum in the U.S., though the government maintains that his alleged ties to a foreign terrorist organization make him ineligible for asylum.
The Ongoing Struggle
Abrego Garcia’s case has highlighted the complexities and controversies of the U.S. im