Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and why is he in an ICE detention center in Pennsylvania?
Abrego Garcia had been wrongfully deported from the U.S. to his native El Salvador before being ordered returned.
The Keystone State stepped onto the national immigration stage on Friday with the unexpected arrival of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old construction worker from Maryland who has become a key figure in President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration campaign. He was transferred from Virginia to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, an ICE detention facility in Philipsburg, about 215 miles west of Philadelphia. Here are the answers to some questions about who he is, why he’s here, and what might happen next.
Who is Abrego Garcia, and why does his case matter?
Abrego Garcia’s case has become a test of the Trump administration’s insistence on its deportation powers and of the courts’ willingness to set limits on who may or may not be removed from the United States. In March, Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported from the U.S. to his native El Salvador before being ordered returned. The Trump administration has said he belonged to the violent international street gang MS-13, an assertion he denies.
What was he doing in the United States?
Abrego Garcia entered the country without permission at age 16, then settled in Maryland, and later married and started a family. An immigration judge ruled in 2019 that he could be deported, but not to El Salvador, where he faced threats of gang violence. Still, the Trump administration deported him there, and his wife successfully sued to bring him back.
Upon his return he was charged with human trafficking — allegations his lawyers called preposterous and vindictive. After the administration was forced to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S., ICE said it would deport him to Uganda. He told the government that he could be tortured if sent to Uganda, or sent from there to El Salvador. ICE has recently said it would deport him to Eswatini, a small country in Southern Africa.
Why is he in Pennsylvania?
Immigration and Customs Enforcement notified Abrego Garcia’s lawyers on Friday that he had been transferred to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center, according to court documents. ICE officials said the new location would make it easier for the lawyers to have access to their client. But his lawyers raised concerns about conditions at Moshannon, saying there have been reports of “assaults, inadequate medical care, and insufficient food” at the facility.
Last month a Chinese national at the center was found hanging by the neck in a shower room and pronounced dead. Chaofeng Ge, 32, had been in ICE custody for five days and was awaiting a hearing before the Executive Office for Immigration Review, ICE said.
What’s been the reaction in Pennsylvania?
The Shut Down Detention Campaign, a coalition of pro-immigrant organizations, has called for Abrego Garcia’s release and scheduled a rally for 5 p.m. Monday outside the center. The campaign said Abrego Garcia’s case was “an international example of the cruelty of our broken immigration system” and of the “terrorization [by] this presidential administration.”
How many people are in ICE custody?
Tens of thousands. And more than 50% more than when Trump took office. As of Sept. 21, ICE held 59,762 people in jails, prisons and detention centers across the country, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. That’s up from about 39,000 in January. More than 71% of those currently held have no criminal convictions.
Is the Moshannon center the only immigrant detention facility in Pennsylvania?
No, though it’s by far the largest. It can hold nearly 1,900 prisoners, making it the largest detention center not just in the state but in the Northeast United States. ICE also holds detainees at the Clinton County Correctional Facility, the Pike County Correctional Facility, and the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia.
Will Abrego Garcia stay in Pennsylvania?
Hard to say. ICE moves detainees between jails for many reasons, some of which immigration attorneys call illegitimate. Detainees may be moved to a different center because of capacity, if beds are available at one place and not another. But some lawyers and advocates say ICE transfers detainees to places where it believes the courts are more likely to favor the federal government and speed deportations, or where it’s difficult for attorneys to see their clients.
In the criminal justice system, detainees have the right to trial in the jurisdiction where their crimes allegedly occurred. Immigration detainees don’t have that right, “and are routinely transferred far away from key witnesses and evidence,” according to Human Rights Watch.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.