Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was unlawfully deported to El Salvador earlier this year, was taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement after turning himself into a facility in Baltimore.
His attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told CNN earlier that he expected that Abrego Garcia would be taken into custody. Trump administration officials have repeatedly said he would be detained if released from criminal custody in a case brought against him in Tennessee earlier this year.
“Regardless of what happens today in my ICE check-in, promise me this,” Abrego Garcia said at a rally with members of his family, immigration activists, and community leaders before reporting to the ICE facility on Monday. “Promise me that you will continue to pray, continue to fight, resist and love, not just for me, but for everybody.”
His comments come as the Trump administration warned it could send Abrego Garcia to Uganda as soon as this week. He returned home at the end of last week from Tennessee, where he was being held pending trial in a federal human smuggling case.
Lydia Walther-Rodriguez, the chief of organizing and leadership at CASA, the group behind the rally, argued that Abrego Garcia is being made a “martyr for having the courage to stand up to this administration’s illegal deportation practices.”
