By Ted Hesson and Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Trump administration on Friday unveiled a plan to send Kilmar Abrego, whose arrest and fight to stay in the U.S. have become a flashpoint in its immigration crackdown, to the small African nation of Eswatini.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security official said in an email to Abrego’s lawyers that Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, has replaced Uganda as the country designated for his deportation.
The official said the change was made because Abrego has stated that he fears persecution or torture in Uganda.
“That claim of fear 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, Africa,” the official said in the email.
Abrego, originally from El Salvador and currently being held in an immigration detention center in Virginia, has no ties to Eswatini, a landlocked country bordering South Africa.
The Trump administration’s push to send Abrego, 30, to Eswatini is the latest twist in a saga that began in March, when U.S. authorities accused him of being a gang member and sent him to an El Salvadoran prison despite an order from a U.S. judge prohibiting his deportation to his native country.
Abrego was brought back in June to face criminal charges of transporting migrants living in the United States illegally. He has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers have accused the administration of vindictive prosecution.
Abrego, a sheet metal worker who entered the United States illegally, had been living in Maryland with his wife, their child and two of her children – all of whom are American citizens – until he was arrested and sent to El Salvador.
Abrego’s lawyers have said the administration is trying to coerce him into pleading guilty.
According to court filings, the administration offered at one point to deport him to Costa Rica if he agreed to plead guilty, and said he would be sent to Uganda if he did not.
The U.S. sent a deportation flight to Eswatini in July that DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said at the time carried “individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back.”
(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Jan Wolfe in Washington; Editing by Tom Hogue)
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