DHS seeks to deport Kilmar Ábrego García to Liberia on Oct. 31, according to the court filing

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of the Trump Administration announced that it could deport Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Ábrego García to Liberia, in West Africa, as soon as Oct. 31, after reaching a diplomatic agreement with that country.

The revelation stems from a court docket filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ), which seeks to enforce a permanent deportation order against Ábrego García.

Ábrego García, 32, a resident of Maryland with his wife and children, was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March. There, he was held in the CECOT prison.

He returned to U.S. soil in June to face human smuggling charges in Tennessee.

Liberia as a destination

The DHS document notes that Liberia, described as "a thriving democracy and one of the United States’s closest partners on the African continent,” has provided "robust protections for human rights," regarding the humane treatment of deportees.

Additionally, it notes that English is the official language of the country, whose constitution offers "strong human rights protections" and is "committed to the humane treatment of refugees," according to the filing.

DHS expects to effect the removal as soon as Oct. 31, as Liberia is not on the list of more than 20 nations that Ábrego García's lawyers allege are risky for possible prosecution or torture.

Counterpart

However, Ábrego García's legal team claims the plan is political retaliation. "After failed attempts with Uganda, Eswatini, and Ghana, ICE now seeks to deport our client, Kilmar Ábrego García, to Liberia, a country with which he has no connection, thousands of miles from his family and home in Maryland," stated attorney Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg in a statement reported by Fox News.

For his part, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, who visited Ábrego García in prison in El Salvador in April, criticized the move: "The Trump administration has been desperately shopping for faraway countries they can ship Kilmar Ábrego García to in order to deny his constitutional due process right to defend himself against the charges they have brought.”